ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how the "molecular tools" have been used, very effectively, to control the size, shape, and surface chemistry of the nanoparticles/materials prepared. Ligands were used during nanoparticle synthesis to improve their dispersional stability in solvents with certain characteristics. The total metal–ligand binding energy increases linearly with the number of total ligand–nanoparticle surface interactions. The Royce Murray group pioneered the study of the ligand place-exchange reactions on gold nanoparticles/clusters. As enormous studies were done in order to understand the mechanisms involved, the chapter confines the description to anisotropic nanostructures of plasmonic material such as Au and Ag and also limit to a few shapes such as nanorods (NRs) and nanowires (NW), with little emphasis on other nanostructures. The steric crowding associated with ligands not only acts against the strong van der Waals (vdW) force of attraction between the metal cores but also helps nanoparticles to remain dispersed in nonpolar solvent media.
