Fig. 9. 2D and 3D TEM characterization of hybrid nanostructures containing different gold nanoparticles coated with mesoporous silica, after growing gold tips through the silica channels: AuNPs (a and e), single-crystal AuNRs (b and f), pentatwinned nanorods (c and g), and nanotriangles (d and h). All the images in the left panel were obtained at the same magnification. In the right panel, a visualization of the 3D reconstructions for a representative nanoparticle of each type is displayed, where the radial nature of both the channels and the gold branches can be observed. Reprinted with permission from ref. 113. Copyright © 2015 American Chemical Society.