Templated synthesis of metal nanorods in silica nanotubes

We report a general method for the synthesis of noble metal nanorods, including Au, Ag, Pt, and Pd, based on their seeded growth in silica nanotube templates. The controlled growth of the metals occurs exclusively on the seeds inside the silica nanotubes, which act as hard templates to confine the one-dimensional growth of the metal nanorods and define their aspect ratios. This method affords large quantities of noble metal nanorods with well-controlled aspect ratios and high yield, which may find wide use in the fields of nanophotonics, catalysis, sensing, imaging, and biomedicine.