Precisely arranging nanoparticles

Gold nanoparticles react with the help of customised polymers to form precisely ordered plasmonic molecules. Photo: Cai/Vana Research team at Göttingen University develops plasmonic molecules from nanoparticles In the incredibly small world of molecules, the elementary building blocks - the atoms - join together in a very regular pattern. In contrast, in the macroscopic world with its larger particles, there is much greater disorder when particles connect. A research team at the University of Göttingen has now succeeded in achieving the same precise arrangement of atoms shown in molecules, but using nanometer-sized particles, known as -plasmonic molecules combinations of nanoscale metallic structures that have unique properties. The results were published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition , the journal of the German Chemical Society, which has classified the article as a "very important paper". There is a transition area between molecular and macroscopic levels, an in-between zone called the nanometre range, where there is often a disordered aggregation of particles. Precise arrangement of nanometre-sized structures - at just one billionth of a metre - is one of the major challenges in the ongoing miniaturisation in electronics, optics and medicine.