Free-standing one-dimensional plasmonic nanostructures Lin Jiang, a Yinghui Sun, a Fengwei Huo, a Hua Zhang, a Lidong Qin, b Shuzhou Li * a and Xiaodong Chen * a Received 4th October 2011, Accepted 25th October 2011 DOI: 10.1039/c1nr11445j The field of plasmonics has become one of the most interesting and active research areas in nanotechnology, enabling numerous fundamental studies and applications. The ability to tailor the size, shape, and environment of metal nanostructures is the key component for controlling the plasmonic properties of individual or aggregated nanostructures. In this feature article, a category of chemically nanofabricated, unique free-standing one-dimensional (1D) plasmonic nanostructures has been summarized. The dispersible plasmonic nanostructures were obtained in high yield with control over gap size and feature size. This ability was exploited to tune the emerging plasmonic properties overcoming the difficulties of other methods to do so, leading to applications in analytical detection, biological sensing, and nanoelectronics. 1. General introduction Plasmonics is an emerging research field, which studies the interaction of light with noble metal nanostructures and the manipulation of light at the nanoscale level. 1,2 It has already led to applications as diverse as subwavelength optics, 3–5 chemical and biological sensing, 6–8 photothermal therapeutics, 9 optoelectronics, 10 catalysis, 11,12 as well as energy harvesting. 13–15 The ability of metal nanostructures to support surface plasmons, generated by the coupling between incident electromagnetic waves with the conduction electrons in the metal nanostructures, is the key component in plasmonics. 16 By tailoring the size, shape, and environment of metal nanostructures, one can control the plasmonic properties of individual nanostructures. 17,18 Furthermore, when nanostructures approach one another, the properties of their surface plasmons are dramatically altered as a result of the strong coupling between the localized surface plasmons of the nanostructures. 19 The gaps between adjacent nanoparticles, for pairs or aggregates of nanoparticles, are a School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798, Singapore b The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, 6670 Bertner Ave, Houston, TX, 77030, USA. E-mail: chenxd@ntu.edu.sg; lisz@ntu.edu.sg Lin Jiang Lin Jiang completed her PhD at the Department of Chemistry, Jilin University, China, in 2005. She was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship in 2006 and worked at the Physical Institute of Muenster University in Ger- many from 2006 to 2008. Currently, she is working as a senior research fellow at the School of Materials Science and Engineering in Nanyang Tech- nological University, Singapore. Her research interests include the development of surface patterning of conducting polymers, assembling plasmonic nano- particles into organized structures with precise positional control, and their application in optoelectronic devices. Yinghui Sun Yinghui Sun received his PhD in organic chemistry in 2005, at State Key Laboratory of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, Jilin University, China. From 2006 to 2009 he worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the Physical Institute of Muenster University and CeN- Tech in Germany. He is currently working as a research fellow at the School of Materials Science and Engineering in Nanyang Technological Univer- sity, Singapore. His current research interests focus on nanomaterials engineering, and specifically on the synthesis, functionalization and application of optoelectronic self-assembled oligopeptides. 66 | Nanoscale, 2012, 4, 66–75 This journal is ª The Royal Society of Chemistry 2012 Dynamic Article Links C < Nanoscale Cite this: Nanoscale, 2012, 4, 66 www.rsc.org/nanoscale FEATURE ARTICLE Published on 23 November 2011. Downloaded on 05/08/2013 07:19:24. View Article Online / Journal Homepage / Table of Contents for this issue