Gold nanorod ensembles as artificial molecules for applications in sensors

The central goal in nanoscience is to achieve control of the structural characteristics of ensembles (artificial molecules) of anisotropic nanoparticles (NPs), which contain new fundamental information about plasmonically or electronically coupled single NPs. Based on their collective behavior, these artificial molecules have potential in optoelectronics and sensing. This review mainly covers different strategies for the synthesis and self-assembly of gold nanorods (GNRs), the properties of self-assembled structures, the application of such structures as sensors, and the trends and future perspective of the self-assembly of GNRs.