Conversion of semiconductor nanoparticles to plasmonic materials by targeted substitution of surface-bound organic ligands

Plasmonic nanoparticles have become a popularly accepted research tool in optoelectronics, photonics, and biomedical applications. The relatively recently appearing semiconductor plasmonic nanoparticles, as opposed to metal ones, are characterized by infrared plasmonic optical transitions and their application has a great future. In this work, the possibility of conversion of semiconductor (excitonic) fluorescence nanocrystals, i.e., quantum dots of the CuInS$_2$ composition, to plasmonic nanoparticles by postsynthetic treatment without changes in the chemical composition of inorganic part of the nanocrystals was demonstrated for the first time ever.