Thickness-controlled synthesis of ultrathin Au sheets and surface plasmonic property.
Thickness-controlled synthesis of nanosheets of nonlayered materials is of scientific significance yet greatly underdeveloped because of the lack of controllable means of inducing anisotropic growth of 2D structures. Here we report a novel 2D template-directed synthesis of ultrathin single-crystalline Au nanosheets with well-tuned thicknesses of several to tens of nanometers, large areas (>100 μm(2)), and atomically flat surfaces. The 2D template is composed of hundred-nanometer-thick water layers sandwiched by lamellar bilayer membranes of a self-assembled nonionic surfactant, dodecylglyceryl itaconate, which appears as an iridescent solution as a result of Bragg reflection of visible light from the periodic lamellar planes. The large-area, ultrathin single-crystalline Au nanosheets enable the fabrication of plasmonic devices. For the first time, the property of surface plasmon polaritons on a patterned single-crystalline Au nanosheet was investigated, and a long propagation length approaching the theoretical expectation was found.
i-LAB and Nano-Bionics Division, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215123, China.
Hai Li
HL
Qin
Dong
D
Wang
Zeng Li
ZL
Huang
Dong Min
DM
Wu
Zhi Cong
ZC
Zeng
Bin
B
Ren
Ke
K
Xu
Jian
J
Jin
D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D015394:Molecular Structure; D057145:Nanoshells / Q000737:chemistry*; D010316:Particle Size; D013499:Surface Properties
D006046:Gold