Directed self-assembly of gold nanoparticles into plasmonic chains.

The plasmonic behavior of metals at the nanoscale is not only appealing for fundamental studies, but also very useful for the development of innovative photonic devices. The past few decades have witnessed great progress in colloidal synthesis of monodisperse metal nanoparticles with defined shapes. This has significantly fueled up the research of directing the metal nanoparticles to self-assemble into tailored extended structures, especially low dimensional ones, for a better control and manipulation of the interactions of the metal nanoparticles with light. In parallel, theories for a better description of nanoplasmonics have been increasingly developed and improved. Thus, the present review is focused on the overview of current experimental and theoretical developments in the directed self-assembly of metal nanoparticles with tailored plasmonic properties, which, hopefully, will provide useful guidelines for future research studies and applications of nanoplasmonics.