Silver nanoprisms with strong absorption in the near‐IR have been synthesized using a modification of the photoinduced method by illuminating preformed silver seeds under different illumination conditions. Low‐intensity light‐emitting diodes and white light combined with different color filters are used as light sources. The lateral dimensions of the nanoprisms are found to be correlated in a quasilinear fashion with the emission wavelength and the position of the main in‐plane dipole plasmon band. The structural characterization of the Ag nanoparticles, carried out using scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high‐resolution TEM, and electron diffraction, reveal that the particles are flat and have a single‐crystal face‐centered‐cubic structure. Time‐resolved studies suggest that the nanoprisms are formed by steady consumption of the original Ag seeds with little variation of the aspect ratio after a short induction time.

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Optical and magnetooptical properties of opal photonic crystals modified by Co nanoparticles have been investigated by modulation spectroscopy technique in the visible spectral range from 400 to 800 nm. The Co nanoparticles of 1 to 8 nm in size were formed by means of chemical reduction reaction inside synthetic opal crystals composed of regularly close-packed SiO2 spheres of diameter 250-300 nm. As it was estimated from the spectral shift of the stop band of photonic crystals, Co nanoparticles occupied up to several percent of void volume in opal crystal lattice. In the Faraday configuration, external magnetic field induced the change in optical transmission normalized to sample thickness 1 cm and magnetic field 1 T equal to 0.10-0.35 for Co-modified opal crystals in the spectral range under consideration. The fabricated hybrid structures can be considered as a possible prototype of magnetophotonic crystals.