Size-controlled assembly of gold nanoparticles induced by a tridentate thioether ligand

The ability to control the size and shape of nanoparticle assemblies is essential for the ultimate applications in sensors, catalysis, medical diagnostics, information storage, and quantum computation. This report demonstrates a novel mediator-template strategy toward this ability by exploring molecular driving forces exerted by a tridentate thioether as a mediator and tetraoctylammonium bromide as a templating agent. A combination of the ligand mediation, the surfactant templating, and their relative concentrations served as the driving forces. This combination leads to unprecedented spherical assemblies of gold nanoparticles in controllable sizes via manipulation of the relative concentrations of mediating and templating components.