Triangular silver nanostructures represent a novel class of nanomaterials with tunable surface plasmon resonance (SPR). By controlling the size and geometry of these structures, their SPR peaks could be tuned from the visible to the near-infrared region with numerous applications in optoelectronic, sensors, nanomedicine and specially cancer diagnosis and treatment. In this study, triangular silver nanostructures were prepared by photoinducing of spherical silver nanoparticles (NPs) with an average diameter of 10 nm. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and ultra violet visible (UVeVis) spectroscopy were used to characterize silver triangles. We have found that uniform triangular silver nanostructures can be obtained using an appropriate visible-light illumination to the primary spherical silver NPs. TEM images indicated that formation of triangular structures depends on the intensity of light source. The effect of intensity of visible-light source on the geometry and size distribution of silver triangles was investigated. It was found that formation of triangular structures in addition to their size and shape evolution strongly depends on the intensity of the light illumination. Furthermore, a comparative study on the antibacterial activities of silver triangles of different sizes reveals that silver triangles experience a size-dependent interaction with the gram-negative Escherichia coli bacteria.
