Web Release Date: February 26,
"Supramolecular" Assembly of Gold Nanorods End-Terminated with Polymer "Pom-Poms": Effect of Pom-Pom Structure on the Association Modes
and
Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, 80 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H6, Canada, Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3290, Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, 4 Taddle Creek Road, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G9, Canada, and Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, 200 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E5, Canada
Received December 16, 2007
Abstract:
We report a predefined self-organization of gold nanorods (NRs) end-terminated with multiple polymer arms ("pom-poms") in higher-order structures. The assembly of polymer-tethered NRs was controlled by changing the structure of the polymer pom-poms. We show that the variation in the molecular weight of the polymer molecules and their relative location with respect to the long side of the NRs resulted in two competing association modes of the nanorods, that is, their side-by-side and end-to-end assembly, and produced bundles, chains, rings, and bundled chains of the NRs. The superposition of the two variables controlling the organization of NRs allowed us to create a map showing the variation in the longitudinal plasmonic bands of the NRs achieved by their self-assembly.
Download the full text: PDF | HTML
