Issue 4, 2018

Molecular cage-bridged plasmonic structures with well-defined nanogaps as well as the capability of reversible and selective guest trapping

Abstract

Creating well-defined plasmonic hotspots with enormous field enhancements as well as the capability of selectively trapping targeted molecules into hotspots is of critical importance and a prerequisite for numerous plasmon-assisted applications, but it represents a great challenge. In this work, a robust molecular cage decorated with thioether moieties at the periphery was designed and synthesized. By using the synthesized cage as a linker, a series of molecular cage-bridged plasmonic structures with well-defined nanogaps (hotspots) were fabricated in an efficient and controllable fashion. It was found both experimentally and theoretically that the nanogaps of about 1.2 nm created by the molecular cage in the resultant plasmonic structures led to a strong plasmon coupling, thus inducing great field enhancement inside the nanogaps. More importantly, the embedded molecular cages endowed the formed hotspots with the capability of selectively trapping targeted molecules, offering huge opportunities for many emergent applications. As a demonstration, the hotspots constructed were used as a unique nanoreactor, and under mild conditions two types of plasmon-driven chemical transformation were successfully performed. All the results clearly indicate that the integration of the host–guest chemistry of the molecular cage with the plasmon-coupling effect of metal particles afforded a new class of plasmonic structures, showing great potential for facilitating a broad variety of plasmon-based applications.

Graphical abstract: Molecular cage-bridged plasmonic structures with well-defined nanogaps as well as the capability of reversible and selective guest trapping

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
12 Aug 2017
Accepted
17 Nov 2017
First published
20 Nov 2017
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2018,9, 889-895

Molecular cage-bridged plasmonic structures with well-defined nanogaps as well as the capability of reversible and selective guest trapping

C. Wang, L. Tian, W. Zhu, S. Wang, N. Gao, K. Zhou, X. Yin, W. Zhang, L. Zhao and G. Li, Chem. Sci., 2018, 9, 889 DOI: 10.1039/C7SC03536E

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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