Correlating optical properties of self-assembled metal nanoparticles with their fine nanoscale structure via co-registration of electron microscopy...

全文：自组装金属纳米粒子的光学性质与其精细纳米结构的关联——通过电子显微镜和光学询问方法的共同注册尽管在建立光学刺激对金纳米粒子和分子间隔系统行为的影响方面取得了很大进展，但它们的纳米尺度过程仍然未知。目前关于纳米结构的许多假设都是基于光学建模和对所涉及成分的广义假设。该项目旨在详细研究这些系统在纳米尺度上的结构、电子和光学行为，以优化其稳定性和性能，以实现可持续的化学和能量收集应用。为此，将对等离子体材料的稳定性和迁移率/扩散率进行比较研究。典型的等离子体材料是铸造金属（Au, Ag, Cu），但这些金属往往相对“软”，导致在照射下观察到表面原子的高迁移率，限制了它们的实际应用。因此，纳米结构材料倾向于变形，产生明显改变的结构，从那些假设和模型来理解样品。为了克服这一点，必须更好地理解自组装单层分子如何改变金属表面的行为。更详细地了解这种行为对于设计能量有利的、因此更耐用的等离子体应用的纳米结构至关重要。

Full Title: Correlating optical properties of self-assembled metal nanoparticles with their fine nanoscale structure via co-registration of electron microscopy and optical interrogation methodsAlthough much progress has been made on establishing the impact of optical stimuli on the behaviour of gold nanoparticle and molecular spacer systems, their nanoscale processes are still unknown. Many of the current hypotheses pertaining to the nanoscale structure are based on optical modelling and generalised assumptions on the constituents involved. This project aims to investigate in detail how these systems behave structurally, electronically and optically at the nanoscale, to optimise their stability and performance for sustainable chemistry and energy harvesting applications. To this end, a comparative study on the stability and mobility/diffusivity of plasmonic materials will be made. Typical plasmonic materials are coinage metals (Au, Ag, Cu), but these tend to be relatively 'soft', resulting in a high mobility in the surface atoms being observed under irradiation, limiting their practical applications. As a result, nanostructured materials tend to deform, yielding significantly altered structures from those hypothesised and modelled for understanding the sample. To overcome this, it is essential to develop a better understanding of how self-assembled monolayers of molecules alter the behaviour of metalsurfaces. Understanding this behaviour in more detail is crucial to the design of energetically favourable and thus more durable nanoarchitectures for plasmonic applications.