Silver nanoplates with ground or metastable structures obtained from template-free two-phase aqueous/organic synthesis
- Army Research Laboratory, 2800 Adelphi, Maryland 20783 (United States)
Silver has unique electrical, catalytic, and plasmonic characteristics and has been widely sought for fabrication of nanostructures. The properties of silver nanostructures are intimately coupled to the structure of silver crystals. Two crystal structures are known for silver: the stable (ground) state cubic face centered 3C-Ag structure and the metastable hexagonal 4H-Ag structure. Recently, Chackraborty et al. [J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 23, 325401 (2011)] discovered a low density, highly reactive metastable hexagonal 2H-Ag structure accessible during electrodeposition of silver nanowires in porous anodic alumina templates. This 2H-Ag structure has enhanced electrical and catalytic characteristics. In the present work we report template-free synthesis of silver nanoplates with the metastable 2H-Ag crystal structure, which appears together with the ground 3C-Ag and the metastable 4H-Ag structures in a two-phase solution synthesis with citric acid as the capping agent. The capacity of citric acid to stabilize both the stable and the metastable structures is explained by its preferential binding to the close packed facets of Ag crystals, which are the (111) planes for 3C-Ag and the (0001) planes for 4H-Ag and 2H-Ag. Nanoplate morphology and structure are characterized using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy. The synthesized nanoplates have thickness from 15 to 17 nm and edge length from 1 to 10 μm. Transmission electron microscopy selected area electron diffraction is used to uniquely identify and distinguish between nanoplates with 2H-Ag or 4H-Ag or 3C-Ag structures.
- OSTI ID:
- 22275616
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 115, Issue 4; Other Information: (c) 2014 U.S. Government; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-8979
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
ALUMINIUM OXIDES
CITRIC ACID
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
CRYSTALS
ELECTRODEPOSITION
ELECTRON DIFFRACTION
GROUND STATES
MORPHOLOGY
PLASMONS
POROUS MATERIALS
QUANTUM WIRES
SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
SILVER
SYNTHESIS
TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
X-RAY DIFFRACTION