Scientificpublications Scientific publications Explore our documents Davydiuk, N., et al. The rising danger of AI-generated images in nanomaterials science and what we can do about it. Nature Nanotech...

Chiral plasmonic nanomaterials display strong interactions with circularly polarized light, offering significant potential in chirality sensing, enantioselective catalysis, and biomedical applications. While recent advances in seeded-growth synthesis have yielded complex chiral gold nanostructures through chemically induced or micelle-directed growth mechanisms, detailed intercorrelated mechanisms remain elusive. In this context, we have systematically investigated the versatility of the chiral inducer 2-amino-N-decyl-3-mercaptopropanamide (LipoCYS), which incorporates both an amino acid moiety and an aliphatic chain designed to bridge both established mechanisms. By employing cubic and octahedral achiral gold seeds and varying the surfactant halides, along with the concentration of LipoCYS, we generated a wide range of chiral morphologies, from twisted helicoids to intricate wrinkled spheres and intermediate structures. Advanced electron microscopy, including electron tomography, enabled comprehensive three-dimensional characterization and revealed distinct chiral morphological transitions and their correlations with chiroptical properties. Excellent agreement was found with the simulation results, thereby validating the representativeness of the microscopic analysis. Our findings expand the synthetic toolbox available for the precise control of nanoparticle chirality, providing deeper insights into the mechanisms of chiral growth and enhancing their potential for tailored applications.

Plasmonic gold nanoparticle size and shape can be engineered via chemical synthesis to achieve strong light-matter interactions at specific wavelengths. However, incorporation of tailored nanoparticles into functional devices is often limited by multistep, time-consuming processes specific to the type of substrate and nanoparticles. In situ growth is an unconventional bottom-up approach where nanoparticles are grown directly on the target substrate, thereby circumventing colloidal synthesis and surface attachment. Despite these advantages, there remains a considerable gap in synthetic control and product quality between particles grown in situ and their counterparts prepared in colloidal dispersion. Herein, we present optimized in situ strategies for the growth of anisotropic gold nanoparticles directly on the internal walls of microfluidic channels, with no need for any top-down lithography or colloidal synthesis steps. Careful optimization enabled us to obtain shape-yields for gold nanorods around 90% (with size dispersion down to 15%)─a significant improvement compared to previous approaches, which have reported a maximum yield <37%. This result relied on identifying synthetic conditions that largely favor surface growth over colloidal growth in the flowing solution, which could be tuned through surface chemistry and flow rate. Overall, these results emphasize the potential of in situ growth as a viable alternative to colloidal synthesis, with high control over the synthesis of anisotropic products directly on a substrate surface. We propose that microfluidic systems containing in situ prepared nanostructures are promising for sensing applications, offering full control over nanoparticle crystallography, morphology, and surface chemistry.

Motivated by potential applications in fields such as medicine or materials science, various methodologies have been developed for the preparation of so-called spherical nucleic acids, based on oligon...

The SERS spectra of reporter molecules adsorbed on chiral gold nanorods depends on the handedness of circularly polarized light (CPL-SERS). The bisignate plasmonic CD spectra of chiral nanorods provi...

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The increasing interest in plasmonic nanoparticles with intrinsic chirality, i.e., reduced symmetry and strong optical activity, calls for characterization beyond qualitative imaging. In this context,...

En la tercera edición de estos premios, Basque Research & Technology Alliance (BRTA) ha reconocido la labor de tres personas investigadoras por su fructífera trayectoria y de tres jóvenes promesas por su proyección investigadora.