Charged gold nanoparticles in non-polar solvents: 10-min synthesis and 2D self-assembly

We report a fast and highly reproducible chemical synthesis method for colloidal gold nanoparticles which are negatively charged in nonpolar solvents and coated with hydrophobic organic molecules. If a hexane droplet containing charged gold nanoparticles is mixed with a larger toluene droplet, nanoparticles immediately float to the air-toluene interface and form a close-packed monolayer film. After evaporation of the solvent molecules, the monolayer film of nanoparticles can be deposited to any substrate without any limit in size. The synthesis does not require a postsynthesis cleaning step, since the two immiscible liquid phases separate the reaction byproducts from gold nanoparticles and a minimal amount of coating molecules is used.