title: Directed self-assembly of densely packed gold nanoparticles.
abstract: Directing the self-assembly of sub-10-nm nanoparticles has been challenging because of the simultaneous requirements to achieve a densely packed monolayer and rearrange nanoparticles to assemble within a template. We met both requirements by separating the processes into two steps by first forming a monolayer of gold nanoparticles on a suitable liquid subphase of anisole and then transferring it edgewise onto a silicon substrate with a prepatterned template comprising nanoposts and nanogratings. Doing so resulted in nanoparticles that assembled in commensuration with the template design while exhibiting appreciable template-induced strain. These dense arrays of nanostructures could either be directly applied or used as lithographic masks in applications for light collection, chemical sensing, and data storage.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), 117602, Singapore.
authors.forename: Mohamed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Asbahi
authors.forename: Kevin T P
authors.initials: KT
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.forename: Fuke
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Huigao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.forename: Naganivetha
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Thiyagarajah
authors.forename: Vivian
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Ng
authors.forename: Joel K W
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Yang