Based on nanocrystal surface engineering, Professor Gao Chuanbo and his team from the Frontier Institute of Science and Technology of XJTU, together with their collaborators, have found that when gold nanocrystals externally adsorb polymer and grow at a higher rate, the mode of growth may shift from layer growth to island growth (Island Growth in the Seed-Mediated Overgrowth of Monometallic Colloidal Nanostructures, Chem, 2017, 3, 678). To further improve the formation density of nanoisland and optimize its surface plasma resonance, researchers have developed a new surface engineering mode. They modified the surface of gold nanocrystals with a small amount of silver, on which halide ions were absorbed, inducing partial surface passivation of gold nanocrystals. This method effectively alters the growth mode of Au nanocrystals, forming Au-Agalloy nanoislands of high density on Au nanocrystals surfaces. The material exhibits excellent SERS activity, and the enhancement factor of its single particle may reach up to 5×106, hopefully, it can be applied to hypersensitized molecular detection in the near future.

A correlative thesis titled "Building High-Density Au-Ag Islands on Au Nanocrystals by Partial Surface Passivation", was published inn Advanced Functional Materials(IF 13.325), an international authoritative journal on material science.