| The work described in this dissertation focuses on the development of a general approach to create nanoscale transition metal chalcogenide materials and new methods for controlling architecture of gold pyramidal structures. In the former, we used chemical nanofabrication, a combination of top-down patterning and bottom-up solid-state synthesis, to achieve control over the shape, size, and ordering of the patterned nanomaterials. We demonstrated orientational control over nanocrystals within sub-300 nm patterns of MoS 2 and formed free-standing nanostructures of crystalline NiS 2. In addition, crossed line arrays of mixed metal chalcogenide nanostructures were achieved, and TaS2 nanopatterns and nanotubes were made by the chemical transformation of tantalum oxide templates. In the latter, a new apparatus was developed for tailoring specific features of the pyramidal structures. We investigated how the optical properties were tuned upon progressively truncating the tip of the pyramids mesostructures affects. |
