Thorough tuning of the aspect ratio of gold nanorods using response surface methodology

•We are finely controlling the aspect ratio of gold nanorods.•We study the effect of variables on aspect ratio (AR) of gold nanorods simultaneously.•We use response surface methodology to make the relation among parameters affect on AR.

In the present work a central composite design based on response surface methodology (RSM) is employed for fine tuning of the aspect ratios of seed-mediated synthesized gold nanorods (GNRs). The relations between the affecting parameters, including ratio of l-ascorbic acid to Au3+ ions, concentrations of silver nitrate, CTAB, and CTAB-capped gold seeds, were explored using a RSM model. It is observed that the effect of each parameter on the aspect ratio of developing nanorods highly depends on the value of the other parameters. The concentrations of silver ions, ascorbic acid and seeds are found to have a high contribution in controlling the aspect ratios of NRs. The optimized parameters led to a high yield synthesis of gold nanorods with an ideal aspect ratio ranging from 1 (spherical particle) to 4.9. In addition, corresponding tunable surface Plasmon absorption band has been extended to 880 nm. The resulted nanorods were characterized by UV–visible spectrometry and transmission electron microscopy.

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