Formation of Uniform and High-Coverage Monolayer Colloidal Films of Midnanometer-Sized Gold Particles over the Entire...

We report a simple and facile method for fabricating monolayer colloidal films of alkanethiol-capped gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on glass substrates. The new method consists of two sequential sonication processes. The first sonication is performed to obtain a well-dispersed state of alkanethiol-capped AuNPs in hexane/acetone in the presence of a substrate. After additional static immersion in the colloidal solution for 5 min, the substrate is subjected to sonication in hexane. By using this method, we succeeded in forming uniform and stable assemblies of midnanometer-sized AuNPs (14, 34, and 67 nm in diameter) over the entire surface of 10-mm square glass substrates in a short processing time of less than 10 min. It was also demonstrated that this method can be applied to a 1.5-in. octagonal glass substrate. The mechanism of monolayer colloidal film formation was discussed based on scanning electron microscopy observations at each preparation step. We found that the second sonication was the key process for uniform and high-surface-coverage colloidal film formation of midnanometer-sized AuNPs. The second sonication promotes the migration of AuNPs on top of the monolayer in contact with the substrate surface, decreasing both the multilayer region and the bare surface area. Eventually, a nearly perfect monolayer colloidal film is formed.