Highly efficient light-induced self-assembly of gold nanoparticles promoted by photoexcitation-induced aggregatable ligands.

There are numerous ways to achieve light-induced self-assembly of gold nanoparticles, but most of them are through chemical reaction and slow. Ligands that can perform photoexcitation-induced aggregation were synthesized and modified onto gold nanoparticles. The leading functionalized nanoparticles exhibit highly efficient light-induced self-assembly properties and show high-contrast color fading in tens of seconds.