We employed just a sufficient amount of NaBH4 for silver nanosphere preparation only to ensure the complete reduction of Agþ to Ag0 without leaving the residual amount of unreacted reducing agent. Moreover,
H2O2 were the principal shape-controlling reagent in our study
, not the mixture of H2O2 and NaBH4 as previously reported [41].
H2O2 was
subsequently added into a colloid of AgNSs to trigger the shape
transformation process in order to deliberately separate the
nucleation of silver seeds and growth of the silver nanoplates. In
addition, the amount of H2O2 required for the shape transformation
was minimized as the H2O2-oxidation was not competing with the
NaBH4-reduction. Our approach can selectively fabricate silver
nanoplate with various color e.g. red, pink, and violet. The ability to
selectively control the LSPR property of silver nanoplates extends
the range of applications and broadens the exploration of this
functional materials in the fields of colorimetric sensor especially
those in medical applications [54] and chemical sensors [55