Design and fabrication of bimetallic plasmonic colloids through cold nanowelding

Abstract

The integration of Au and Ag into nanoalloys has emerged as an intriguing strategy to further tailor and boost the plasmonic properties of optical substrates. Conventional approaches for fabricating these materials via chemical reductions of metal salts in solution suffer from some limitations, such as the possibility of retaining the original morphology of the monometallic substrate. Spontaneous nanowelding at room temperature has emerged as an alternative route to tailor Au/Ag nanomaterials. Herein, we perform a thorough study on the cold-welding process of silver nanoparticles onto gold substrates to gain a better understanding of the role of different variables in enabling the formation of well-defined bimetallic structures that retain the original gold substrate morphology. To this end, we systematically varied the size of silver nanoparticles, dimensions and geometries of gold substrates, solvent polarity and structural nature of the polymeric coating. A wide range of optical and microscopy techniques have been used to provide a complementary and detailed description of the nanowelding process. We believe this extensive study will provide valuable insights into the optimal design and engineering of bimetallic plasmonic Ag/Au structures for application in nanodevices.