Inside Front Cover: One‐Dimensional Plasmon Coupling by Facile Self‐Assembly of Gold Nanoparticles into Branched Chain Networks (Adv. Mater. 21/2005)

Short, single‐particle‐wide chains and complex networks of interconnected chains are easily self‐assembled from 13 nm Au nanoparticles by inducing a surface electrostatic dipolar moment in a controlled manner. Mann and co‐workers further demonstrate both experimentally and theoretically on p. 2553 that efficient surface plasmon coupling takes place in these extensive networks, thus opening a new bottom–up approach to subwavelength optical‐waveguiding devices. The left panel in the image shows isolated 13 nm Au nanoparticles; the back panel, short linear chains; the bottom panel, complex branched network of chains; and the right panel, a graphical rendering of optical spectroscopic properties during the self‐assembly process.