Gold coating of silver nanoprisms

Abstract

Core–shell Ag@Au nanoprisms are prepared through a surfactant-free seed-mediated approach by taking advantage of the anisotropic structure of silver nanoprisms as seeds. The gold coating on the silver nanoprism surface is achieved by using hydroxylamine as a mild reducing agent, and the final fully gold-coated prism structures are confirmed by microscopic and spectroscopic characterization. The resulting Ag@Au core–shell structure preserves the optical signatures of nanoprisms and offers versatile functionality and particularly better stability against oxidation than the bare silver nanoprism. The surface plasmon resonances of the core–shell Ag@Au nanoprisms can be tuned throughout the visible and near-IR range as a function of the Au shell thickness. Such tailorable optical features and surfactant-free gold shells have great potential applications in biosensing and bioimaging.