Electrode nanomaterials self-assembled from thiolate-encapsulated gold nanocrystals

This paper describes the preliminary findings of an investigation of thin f ilm assembly from monolayer-encapsulated gold nanocrystals and 1,9-nonanedi thols. The creation of novel electrode nanomaterials derived from intriguin g combinations of the encapsulating shells and the particle cores constitut es the motivation of this work. Narrow-sized, shaped and encapsulated nanoc rystals were assembled as thin films on different substrates via an exchang e reaction between alkanethiolates on the nanocrystal shells and dithiols i n the solution. Both microscopic and spectroscopic data have confirmed the formation of dithiol-linked nanocrystals in the thin films. The electrochem ical study has revealed interesting parallels and differences between monol ayers on planar and nanocrystal gold surfaces, which have important implica tions to the correlation between binding properties at nanocrystal facets a nd the electrode properties of this interesting class of composite nanomate rials. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.