Towards Precise Control of Anisotropic Plasmonic Nanoparticles for SERS Applications

In recent years, nanoparticles have ignited people’s enthusiasm with their remarkable properties and far-reaching applications which are size, shape and composition dependent. Although a variety of nanoparticles have been synthesized in solution, the current synthetic strategies are still far from ideal, requiring more effort for precise control which has been emerging as a new frontier in nano research. In this talk, I will present our recent work on how to realize the precise control on colloidal plasmonic nanoparticles (CPNs), including the precise control of size and shape of CPNs in colloidal synthesis with a better understanding of the reaction mechanism, and the precise control of surface engineering of CPNs through regioselective surface encoding strategy. The precise control in nano research is of critical importance to understand the structure-property correlation, customize the CPNs synthesis and surface engineering for specific applications. Its realization will be accompanied by a better understanding of mechanism, the development of synthetic and surface engineering technology and provide many exciting opportunities for discovering new applications.

Biography: Dr. Gang Chen is an Assistant Professor in Department of Chemistry at the University of Central Florida (UCF). Dr. Chen received his PhD in Physical Chemistry from the Chinese Academy of Sciences on 2008. He did his postdoc training at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and the University of Chicago, focusing on the self-assembly of nanomaterials. He started his independent career at UCF since 2016. His current research interest is the precise control of anisotropic plasmonic nanoparticle synthesis, surface engineering and their applications in SERS.