Self-assembled gold nanoparticle monolayers in sol–gel matrices: synthesis and gas sensing applications

Gold nanoparticle monolayers have been deposited on amino-functionalized commercial glass and on sol–gel glass surfaces using a fast chemisorption protocol. The nanoparticle surface coverage could be tuned by varying the deposition conditions. The nanoparticle monolayers have been embedded into SiO2 sol–gel matrices to study the feasibility of this approach for the engineering of sol–gel based nano-composites. The same approach has been used for obtaining Au–NiO multilayer films which showed a reversible absorbance change when exposed to CO (100–10000 ppm) at 300 °C operating temperature.