A General Strategy for Self‐Assembly of Nanosized Building Blocks on Liquid/Liquid Interfaces

Abstract

A family of water/oil interfaces is introduced to provide effective platforms for rapid fabrication of large-area self-assembled nanofilms composed of various nanosized building blocks, including nanoparticles (NPs), nanocubes (NC), nanowires (NWs), and nanosheets, at room temperature. As a general interfacial assembly method, NWs and NPs are co-assembled at the liquid/liquid interface. The as-prepared co-assembled Ag NW and Ag NC films show high surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) intensity, the SERS performance being strongly dependent on the number ratio of the two kinds of nanosized building blocks. The results demonstrate that this interfacial system provides a general method for the assembly of various nanosized building blocks with different shapes and dimensionalities, and thus paves an alternative pathway for further applications of macroscopic assemblies with different functionalities.

Ordering Ag nanowire arrays by a glass capillary: A portable, reusable and durable SERS substrate

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“…For nanostructure assembly at the liquid–liquid interface, the main driving force usually includes electrostatic forces, interfacial energies, and the decrease of the interaction between capping molecules . Remarkably, NPs and NWs can be well coassembled at liquid–liquid interfaces …”

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