Dimers of Silver Nanospheres: Facile Synthesis and Their Use as Hot Spots for Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 485 - 490
• Main Authors: Li, Weiyang, Camargo, Pedro H. C, Lu, Xianmao, Xia, Younan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 01.01.2009
• Subjects: Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Crystallization - methods; Dimerization; Exact sciences and technology; Low-dimensional structures (superlattices, quantum well structures, multilayers): structure, and nonelectronic properties; Macromolecular Substances - chemistry; Materials science; Materials Testing; Molecular Conformation; Nanocrystalline materials; Nanoscale materials and structures: fabrication and characterization; Nanostructures - chemistry; Nanostructures - ultrastructure; Nanotechnology - methods; Particle Size; Physics; Silver - chemistry; Surface Plasmon Resonance - methods; Surface Properties; Surfaces and interfaces; thin films and whiskers (structure and nonelectronic properties); Scanning electron microscopy; Gold; Etching; Gallium phosphide; Nanoparticles; Silver; Monocrystals; SERS; Chlorides; Imaging; Dimers; Nanosphere; Nanostructured materials

This paper describes a simple, one-pot method that generates dimers of silver nanospheres in one step without any additional assembly steps. The dimers are consisted of single-crystal silver nanospheres ∼30 nm in diameter and separated by a gap of 1.8 nm wide. The key to the success of this method l...