Giant single crystalline Au microplates

Abstract

Single crystalline Au(111) surface is the most sought after platform for studying molecular and other inter-esting phenomena. Here we report the synthesis of giant Au(111) single crystalline microplates along with their prototype applications. The single-crystal surfaces are atomically flat and possess areas extending over ∼100,000 μm². The synthesis method is simple involv-ing a one-step thermolysis process, i.e. heating on a hot plate, of a alkylammonium salt, making the process flow easy and scalable for mass production. Other interesting anisotropic structures such as nanorods and microstars are also obtained by slightly varying the synthetic conditions.