Plasmon coupling in ordered metal nanoparticle assemblies leads to tunable collective surface plasmon resonances that strongly depend on the interparticle distance. Here we report on the surface plasmon scattering of polystyrene-functionalized 40 nm gold nanoparticles self-assembled into close-packed rings. Using single particle dark-field scattering spectroscopy, we observed strong near-field ...

The superatom model for nanoparticle structure is shown to be inadequate for the prediction of the thermodynamic stability of gold nanoparticles. The observed large HOMO-LUMO gaps for stable nanoparticles predicted by this model are, for sulfur-stabilized gold nanoparticles, attributed to covalent interactions of the metal with thiyl adsorbate radicals rather than ionic interactions with thiola...

Presently, nanotechnology is a multi-trillion dollar business sector that covers a wide range of industries, such as medicine, electronics and chemistry. In the current era, the commercial transition of nanotechnology from research level to industrial level is stimulating the world's total economic growth. However, commercialization of nanoparticles might offer possible risks once they are libe...

Nanotechnology has evolved to play a prominent role in our economy. Increased use of nanomaterials poses potential human health risk. It is therefore critical to understand the nature and origin of the toxicity imposed by nanomaterials (nanotoxicity). In this article we review the toxicity of the transition metal oxides in the 4th period that are widely used in industry and biotechnology. Nanop...

Structural ordering is widely present in molecules and materials. However, the organization of molecules on the curved surface of nanoparticles is still the least understood owing to the major limitations of the current surface characterization tools. By the merits of x-ray crystallography, we reveal the structural ordering at all scales in a super robust 133-gold atom nanoparticle protected by...

Noble metal nanoparticles have been of tremendous interest due to their intriguing size- and shape-dependent plasmonic and catalytic properties. Combining tunable plasmon resonances with superior catalytic activities on the same metallic nanoparticle, however, has long been challenging because nanoplasmonics and nanocatalysis typically require nanoparticles in two drastically different size reg...

Metal–insulator–metal (MIM) nanogaps in the canonical nanoparticle-on-mirror geometry (NPoM) provide deep-subwavelength confinement of light with mode volumes smaller than V/Vλ < 10–6. However, access to these hotspots is limited by impendence mismatch between high in-plane k∥ trapped and free-space plane-waves, making in- out-coupling difficult. Here, constructing a nanoparticle-on-foil (NPoF)...

In this work, we have investigated the capability of different bimetallic nanoparticle alloy combinations to be used in fibre optic temperature sensing based on the technique of surface plasmon resonance (SPR). The metals considered for the present analysis are silver, gold and aluminium. The analysis is derived mainly from the thermo-optic effect along with some fundamental concepts of metal o...

Heterogeneous catalysis is of paramount importance in chemistry and energy applications. Catalysts that couple light energy into chemical reactions in a directed, orbital-specific manner would greatly reduce the energy input requirements of chemical transformations, revolutionizing catalysis-driven chemistry. Here we report the room temperature dissociation of H(2) on gold nanoparticles using v...

Platinum nanoparticles functionalized with 4-ethynylphenylboronic acid pinacol ester (Pt-EPBAPE) were successfully synthesized by a simple chemical reduction procedure. Because of the formation of conjugated metal-ligand interfacial linkages, the resulting nanoparticles exhibited apparent photoluminescence arising from the nanoparticle-bound acetylene moieties that behaved analogously to diacet...