Tuning chiral morphology of gold nanoparticles with reversed chiral signals by adjusting the reaction temperature of the seed-mediated growth process

Abstract

Chiral gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have promising applications in asymmetric catalysis, chiral sensing, optical materials and disease therapies. Currently, the seed-mediated and chiral ligand-directed growth method is popular for preparing chiral AuNPs, and the chirality of the AuNPs is dependent on the chirality of the used chiral ligand. In this work, we unexpectedly found that the reaction temperature could tune the chirality of AuNPs in the seed-mediated and chiral ligand-directed growth method. Under the reaction temperatures of 0 and 30 °C, two types of AuNPs with opposite chiral signals were prepared using one chiral ligand. This work provides guidelines for the rational design of chiral AuNPs with diverse morphology. This work is also helpful in understanding the chirality origin of AuNPs.