CNM Research Featured in Journal

"Surfactantless synthesis of silver nanoplates with rough surfaces and their application in SERS," by Yugang Sun and Gary Wiederrecht of the Nanophotonics Group will be featured on the cover of Small, 3, 11 (Nov. 2007).

Abstract: Silver nanoplates with thicknesses of 50–70 nm and edge lengths ranging from 200 nm to 1 mm are grown on semiconductor wafers at room temperature through a simple galvanic reaction between an aqueous solution of silver nitrate and n-type GaAs. The as-grown silvber structures have chemically clean surfaces because no surfactant or coordinating molecules are involved in the synthesis. Electron microscopy characterization indicates that each silver plate has rough surfaces and a half-moon morphology with one straight edge and one arclike edge. Systematic studies on varying reaction conditions reveal that the oxide (i.e., Ga2O3 and As2O3) layers of GaAs, generated in situ in the reactions, play an important role in assisting the growth of anisotropic nanoplates. The cleanliness of the surfaces of the silver nanoplates is beneficial to attachment of interesting molecules on their surfaces for various applications, such as plasmonic-enhanced photophysical and photochemical processes and surface-enhanced spectroscopies.