Metal nanoparticles (e.g., Au, Ag, Cu, Al) are essential components in the toolbox of plasmonic nanostructures. Bottom-up chemical synthesis offers the potential for scaling up the materials production, as well as tailoring optical properties by fine tuning size, shape and surface beyond the conventional photolithography limit. We aim to develop rational synthesis strategies for producing nanoparticles with desired morphologies (nanowires, nanocubes, nano square cuboids), and for building up a knowledge base of shape-properties relationships. Such nanoparticles can be used as the building blocks in many areas such as plasmonic circuits, surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), bioimaging and even cancer therapy.