A highly scalable approach for producing surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy substrates is introduced. The novel method involves assembling individual nanoparticles in pre‐defined templates, one particle per template, forming a high denisity of nanogaps over large areas, while decoupling nanostructure synthesis from placement.

We introduce a nanoplasmonic platform merging multiple modalities for optical trapping, nanospectroscopy, and biosensing applications. Our platform is based on surface plasmon polariton driven monopole antenna arrays combining complementary strengths of localized and extended surface plasmons. Tailoring of spectrally narrow resonances lead to large index sensitivities ͑S ϳ 675 nm/ RIU͒ with record high figure of merits ͑FOMϳ 112.5͒. These monopole antennas supporting strong light localization with easily accessible near-field enhanced hotspots are suitable for vibrational nanospectroscopy and optical trapping. Strong optical forces ͑350 pN/ W / m 2 ͒ are shown at these hotspots enabling directional control with incident light polarization.

Directed assembly of nano building blocks offers a versatile route to the creation of complex nanostructures with unique properties. Bottom-up directed assembly of nanoparticles have been considered as one of the best approaches to fabricate such functional and novel nanostructures. However, there is a dearth of studies on making crystalline, solid, and homogeneous nanostructures. This requires a fundamental understanding of the forces driving the assembly of nanoparticles and precise control of these forces to enable the formation of desired nanostructures. Here, we demonstrate that colloidal nanoparticles can be assembled and simultaneously fused into 3-D solid nanostructures in a single step using externally applied electric field. By understanding the influence of various assembly parameters, we showed the fabrication of 3-D metallic materials with complex geometries such as nanopillars, nanoboxes, and nanorings with feature sizes as small as 25 nm in less than a minute. The fabricated gold nanopillars have a polycrystalline nature, have an electrical resistivity that is lower than or equivalent to electroplated gold, and support strong plasmonic resonances. We also demonstrate that the fabrication process is versatile, as fast as electroplating, and scalable to the millimeter scale. These results indicate that the presented approach will facilitate fabrication of novel 3-D nanomaterials (homogeneous or hybrid) in an aqueous solution at room temperature and pressure, while addressing many of the manufacturing challenges in semiconductor nanoelectronics and nanophotonics.

Conductive or semiconducting nanomaterials-based applications such as electronics and sensors often require direct placement of such nanomaterials on insulating surfaces. Most fluidic-based directed assembly techniques on insulating surfaces utilize capillary force and evaporation but are diffusion limited and slow. Electrophoretic-based assembly, on the other hand, is fast but can only be utilized for assembly on a conductive surface. Here, we present a directed assembly technique that enables rapid assembly of nanomaterials on insulating surfaces. The approach leverages and combines fluidic and electrophoretic assembly by applying the electric field through an insulating surface via a conductive film underneath. The approach (called electro-fluidic) yields an assembly process that is 2 orders of magnitude faster compared to fluidic assembly. By understanding the forces on the assembly process, we have demonstrated the controlled assembly of various types of nanomaterials that are conducting, semiconducting, and insulating including nanoparticles and single-walled carbon nanotubes on insulating rigid and flexible substrates. The presented approach shows great promise for making practical devices in miniaturized sensors and flexible electronics.

The precise, size-selective assembly of nanoparticles gives rise to many applications where the assembly of nano building blocks with different biological or chemical functionalizations is necessary. We introduce a simple, fast, reproducible-directed assembly technique that enables a complete sorting of nanoparticles with single-particle resolution. Nanoparticles are size-selectively assembled into prefabricated via arrays using a sequential template-directed electrophoretic assembly method. Polystyrene latex (PSL) nanoparticles with diameters ranging from 200 to 50 nm are selectively assembled into vias comparable to nanoparticle diameter. We investigate the effects of particle size and via size on the sorting efficiency. We show that complete sorting can be achieved when the size of the vias is close to the diameter of the nanoparticles and the size distribution of the chosen nanoparticles does not overlap. The results also show that it is necessary to keep the electric field on during the insertion and removal of the template. To elucidate the versatility and nil effects that the electrophoresis assembly technique has on the assembled nanoparticle characteristics, we have assembled cancer-specific monoclonal antibody-2C5-coated nanoparticles and have also shown that they can successfully measure low concentrations of the nucleosome (NS) antigen.