Tunable hydroxylated surfactants: an efficient toolbox towards anisotropic gold nanoparticles

Abstract

Easily tunable N,N-dimethyl-N-alkyl-N-(hydroxyalkyl)ammonium salts have been synthesized and used as capping agents to produce size- and shape-controlled anisotropic gold nanoparticles. The influence of the lipophilic chain length and the counter-ion of this original library of hydroxylated surfactants has been evaluated. From this study, various shapes (spheres, rods, prisms) have been achieved.