Composite ligand shells on gold nanoprisms – an ensemble and single particle study

The attachment of thiolated molecules onto gold surfaces is one of the most extensively used and robust ligand exchange approaches to exploit the nanooptical features of nanoscale and nanostructured plasmonic materials. In this work, the impact of thiol adsorption on the optical properties of wet-chemically synthesized gold nanoprisms is studied both at the ensemble and single particle level to investigate the build-up of more complex ligand layers. Two prototypical ligands with different lengths have been investigated ((16-mercaptohexadecyl)trimethylammonium bromide – MTAB and thiolated polyethylene glycol – mPEG-SH). From ensemble experiments it is found that composite ligand layers are obtained by the sequential addition of the two thiols, and an island-like surface accumulation of the molecules can be anticipated. The single particle experiment derived chemical interface damping and resonance energy changes further support this and show additionally that when the two thiols are used simultaneously, a higher density, intermixed layer is formed. Hence, when working with more than a single type of ligand during surface modification, sequential adsorption is preferred for the combination of accessible essential surface functionalities, whereas for high overall loading the simultaneous use of the different ligand types is favourable.