The transfer of the concept of chirality from molecules to synthesized nanomaterials has attracted attention amongst multidisciplinary teams. Here we demonstrate heterogeneous nucleation and anisotropic accumulation of Au nanoparticles on multilayer MoS2 planes to form chiroptically functional nanomaterials. Thiol amino acids with chiral conformations modulate asymmetric growth of gold nanoarchitectures on seeds of highly faceted Au/MoS2 heterostructures. Consequently, dendritic plasmonic nanocrystals with partial chiral morphologies are synthesized. The chirality of dendritic nanocrystals inherited from cysteine molecules refers to the structural characteristics and includes specific recognition of enantiomeric molecules. With integration of the intrinsic photothermal properties and inherited enantioselective characteristics, dendritic Au/MoS2 heterostructures exhibit chirality-dependent release of antimicrobial drugs from hydrogel substrates when activated by exogenous infrared irradiation. A three-in-one strategy involving synthesis of chiral dendritic heterostructures, enantioselective recognition, and controlled drug release system is presented, which improves nanomaterial synthetic technology and enhances our understanding of crucial chirality information.

Mercury ions can modulate the surface engineering effect of MoS2. Based on the cooperative optical characteristics of semiconducting MoS2 and plasmonic gold nanostructures, a novel colorimetric mercury sensing is established.

Gold nanostructures have been significantly employed as attractive sensing probes for environmental and biological analysis. Nevertheless, due to the environment-sensitive local surface plasmon resonance of gold nanostructures and their actively...

A one-pot approach using polymeric micelles as the recyclable template was used to prepare hybrid yolk–shell or Janus-like nanoparticles (NPs).

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