Controlled growth of concave gold nanobars with high surface-enhanced Raman-scattering and excellent catalytic activities

Abstract

Highly monodispersed concave gold nanobars with 24 high-index {730} facets are synthesized through a seed-mediated growth in aqueous solution. The transformation from the truncated rectangular nanobars to rectangular nanobars, then transitional products, and final concave rectangular nanobars is observed with the fine control of silver nitrate in the growth solution, and their corresponding transverse surface plasmons can be well tuned, too. These concave gold nanobars exhibit good optical property, excellent catalytic activity, and high surface-enhanced Raman-scattering (SERS) response.