Find in Library

A trilayer SiO2/Ag/SiO2 nanocap array was prepared on a two-dimensional template. When annealed at different temperatures, the curvature of the SiO2/Ag/SiO2 nanocap arrays increased, which led to Ag nanocap shrinkage. The stress provided by the curved SiO2 layer induced the formation of Ag nanotwins. Ag nanotwins assisted the growth of nanoparticles when the neighboring nanotwins changed the local misorientations. Nanocap shrinkage reduced the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) coupling between neighboring nanocaps; concurrently, grain growth decreased the SPR coupling between the particles in each nanocap, which led to a red shift of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) bands and decreased the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) signals.