Optical Properties of Laterally Oriented Self-Assembled Monolayers of Silver Nanoplatelets on Cationic Polymers

Silver plasmonic nanoplatelets functionalized with sodium mercaptoethanesulfonate were electrostatically deposited onto thin films of cationic co-polymers to form a dense planar-oriented layer. We observed a linear dependence of the optical density of as-prepared films versus the amount of tertiary amino groups in the polymeric film. Our novel method allows direct examination of the optical properties and morphology of silver nanoplatelets in the same polymeric film.