Templated Techniques for the Synthesis and Assembly of Plasmonic Nanostructures

Nanostructure synthesis and assembly methodologies are shown to be categorized as following the same basic principle of templating. Studies have revealed that templated techniques take advantage of prefabricated nanostructures with well-defined geometries to guide the formation of plasmonic materials that mimic the symmetry of the template. Porous-membrane-synthesized segmented nanorods can act as sacrificial templates to create 1-D structures with positive and negative features that have been used as powerful SERS substrates due to their superior plasmonic properties. One of the most significant advantages of templated methods is their ability to incorporate dissimilar materials into a single nanostructure. The enhanced local fields generated under resonance can strongly affect other optically active materials, such as semiconductors and molecular dyes, providing avenues to new light-mediated and enhanced properties.