Reply to "Comments on electric-field-assisted growth of highly uniform and oriented gold nanotriangles on conducting glass substrates"

A reply to the comments by Diao and coworkers on electric-field-assisted growth of highly uniform and oriented gold nanotriangles on conducting glass substrates, is presented. The authors say that SEM, AFM, and optical images are presented, which suggest that nanotriangles (NTs) are indeed formed. In order to confirm the formation of the NTs, samples were imaged using dynamic force microscopy (DFM), and the results were confirmed for both the parent and the NT surfaces. The non-contact-mode topographic and phase AFM images of NTs that were synthesized under optimized condition showed that most of the NTs observed had an edge length of 400-450 nm. In the UV-vis absorption spectra, the feature at 520nm can be attributed to the transverse plasmon absorption, as is the case for other anisotropic structures. The authors are convinced that the results indicate the electric-field-assisted formation of NTs and were not caused by artifacts of AFM.