Thermal-induced surface plasmon band shift of gold nanoparticle monolayer: morphology and refractive index sensitivity.

In this paper, thermal-induced behaviors of a gold nanoparticle monolayer on glass slides are investigated. First, through horizontal lifting, gold nanoparticle monolayers are transferred from a water/hexane interface to glass slides. Then thermal treatment is carried out in air, after which an apparent color change of the obtained samples is noticed, depending on the annealing temperature, reflecting a shift of the surface plasmon band (SPB). Depending on the trend of SPB shift, the overall thermal process is divided into three stages. In the first stage, SPB shows a redshift trend with concomitant band broadening. Further increase of the annealing temperature in the second stage results in an increase of interparticle distance. Thus an apparent decrease in absorbance takes place with SPB shift to shorter wavelengths. In the third stage, the SPB redshifts again. Bulk refractive index sensitivity (RIS) measurements are taken by immersing the obtained samples in solutions of various refractive indices and a linear dependence of RIS(λ) and RIS(ext) on refractive index is concluded. In particular, the influences of parameters such as particle sizes, location of SPB, substrate effect and morphology effect on RIS are discussed in detail. The corresponding performance of each sample as a localized surface plasmon resonance-based sensor is evaluated by a figure of merit (FOM) represented as FOM(λ) and FOM(ext). It is found that the optimum annealing temperature is 500 °C. In terms of nanoparticle sizes, samples with a 35 nm gold nanoparticle monolayer perform better than those with 15 nm. The current strategy is simple and facile to achieve fine control of the SPB, in which large-size precision instruments or complex chemosynthesis are unnecessary. Therefore, this method has not only significance for theory but also usefulness in practical applications.