Effects of Intensity and Energy of CW UV Light on the Growth of Gold Nanorods

Growth of gold nanorods (AuNRs) by photochemical reduction of HAuCl4 in a micelle solution of hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and tetraoctylammonium bromide (TOAB) is studied. The effects of 300 and 254 nm UV light sources and their photon flux on the anisotropic growth of gold nanoparticles are investigated by controlling duration of irradiation and the number of lamps within a photochemical reactor. The resulting AuNRs were characterized by absorption spectroscopy, FTIR, and TEM. Experimental results indicate that a higher density of longer colloidal AuNRs form by increasing the number of incident photons (lamps) at 300 nm while the 254 nm lights produce a lower yield of shorter AuNRs. The yield of AuNRs also depends on the duration of irradiation which was found to be 6.00 h for 300 nm and 5.00 h for 254 nm radiation. Acetone is found to play a major role in the synthesis of AuNRs. Two mechanisms are proposed for the synthesis of Au nanoparticles in the presence and absence of acetone. Irradiation of samples for an excess time produces a lower concentration of AuNRs and a higher yield of spherical particles. This effect is attributed to atom-by-atom dissolution of AuNRs into Au-spherical particles.