Creation and Reconstruction of Thermochromic Au Nanorods with Surface Concavity

Abstract

Conventional colloidal syntheses typically produce nanostructures with positive curvatures due to thermodynamic preference. Here, we demonstrate the creation of surface concavity in Au nanorods through seed-mediated growth in confined spaces and report their thermochromic responses to temperature changes. The unique surface concavity is created by templating against Fe₃O₄ nanorods, producing a new concavity-sensitive plasmonic band. Due to the high surface energy, the metastable nanorods can be reconstructed at a moderate temperature, enabling convenient and precise tuning of their plasmonic properties by aging in different solvents. Such structural reconstruction of concave Au nanorods enables the fabrication of thermochromic plasmonic films that can display images with vivid color changes or exhibit encrypted, invisible information upon aging. This templating strategy is universal in creating concave nanostructures, which may open the door to designing new nanostructures with promising applications in sensing, anticounterfeiting, information encryption, and displays.