Chem
ArticleIsland Growth in the Seed-Mediated Overgrowth of Monometallic Colloidal Nanostructures
The Bigger Picture
Noble-metal nanocrystals find broad application in sensing, imaging, and catalysis, and their performance is heavily dependent on the nanostructures. Until now, general rules of crystal growth have been established and constitute the current wisdom in the structural design of noble-metal nanocrystals. For example, island growth of a metal on nanocrystals of another metal is usually induced by lattice mismatch between the two metals. However, in many cases, great possibilities lie beyond these rules for discovering new nanostructures with intriguing properties and applications. Here, we demonstrate this possibility by establishing a mechanism that allows an unusual island-growth mode of monometallic Au without involving any lattice mismatch. It enables production of a family of Au island structures, which showed superior performance in surface-enhanced Raman scattering. Our findings could inspire further efforts in building sophisticated metal nanostructures.
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