Self-assembly of silver nanoparticles through functionalization with coumarin-thiazole fused-ring thiol

Self-assembly of nanoscale building blocks plays a critical role for the edifice of functional nanomaterials. In this work coumarin based fused-ring heterocyclic thiol functionalized silver nanoparticle exhibiting large self-assembly is reported. The particles spontaneously self-organise towards the formation of larger superstructures, yet still retaining their individual particle morphology (~10nm). The π-stacking behaviour of coumarin based fused ring aromatic skeleton seems to play the key role for the induction of dense assembly in this hybrid nanoparticles. In the present work the anchoring group (thiol) is directly attached to the aromatic framework of the Coumarin-thiazole fused-ring, for easier electron flow between the metal and the aromatic ligand. The synthesized materials have been characterized by UV-Vis, Fluorescence, XRD, TEM, SAED, IR, ¹H and ¹³C NMR. The synthesis of the ligand and process of functionalization is simple and easily reproducible.