Gold nanoshells with varying morphologies through templated surfactant-assisted seed-growth method

Plasmonic nanoparticles exhibit dramatic changes in optical properties depending on their spatial organization. Therefore, the ability to precisely control their assembly structure is important for both fundamental understanding and practical applications. In this personal account, we describe a templated surfactant-assisted seed-growth method to synthesize core–shell-type gold nanoparticle assemblies with controllable surface morphologies and optical properties. This approach provides a simple procedure for simultaneous growth and assembly of metal nanoparticles on polymer templates, producing well-defined nanostructures such as spiky nanoshells and raspberry-like metamolecules with useful and interesting optical properties, such as strong and uniform surface-enhanced Raman scattering and metamaterial properties. We discuss the factors that control the morphology and collective properties, describe the design rules acquired from the system, and suggest future directions of this research area.