Lateral Growth of Uniformly Thin Gold Nanosheets Facilitated by Two-Dimensional Precursor Supply

The nanosheets of highly symmetric materials with a face-centered cubic lattice such as gold have been synthesized by adsorbing the precursors on a flat surface, whose chemical specificity induces the anisotropy of growth rates. We have succeeded in the fabrication of gold nanosheets in a hydrophilic space inside highly separated bilayers, which work as two-dimensional hydrophilic reactors, in a hyperswollen lamellar liquid crystalline phase of an amphiphile solution. One of the physical properties, amphiphilicity, confines the ingredients therein. The nanosheets can only grow in the in-plane direction due to the inhibition of the out-of-plane growth rather than the anisotropy of growth rates probably. Thus, the synthesis can be accelerated; the particles can be completed within 15 min. As not relying on chemical specificity, silver nanosheets could also be synthesized in the same way. The suspension of gold and silver nanosheets without any amphiphiles could be obtained, and the solvent is replaceable. We found that the width of the obtained gold nanosheets is proportional to the Reynolds number of the solution because the area of the bilayer in the hyperswollen lamellar phase depends on shear stress. This implies that the areas of gold nanosheets depend on the areas of the bilayers, and it can be controlled by changing the Reynolds number. This method could be widely used to continuously obtain large-area nanosheets of various materials in a roll-to-roll manufacturing process.