Völkl A, Toutouly J, Drobek D, Apeleo Zubiri B, Spiecker E, Klupp Taylor R (2023)
Publication Type: Journal article, Original article
Publication year: 2023
Book Volume: 6
Pages Range: 10126-10137
Journal Issue: 12
Extensive research has been conducted on
colloids that incorporate nanostructured noble metals, motivated in particular
by their highly tunable optical properties. However, the lack of approaches that
offer reproducibility, tunability and scalable production is limiting their exploitation
in many application areas. Here we present an innovative process for the
controlled formation of silver patches on silica nanospheres using gold
nanocrystal seeds. The synthesis of the seeds and their attachment in very
small numbers to the silica spheres is achieved without employing any
surfactants, stabilizers or linker molecules. Using advanced transmission
electron microscopy techniques, we show that electroless deposition of nanostructured
silver occurs at the introduced seeds and leads to a central protrusion from
the metal patches not observed in earlier, seed-free work. We demonstrate both
seeding and growth processes can be achieved in millimixer flow reactors. With
this simple and scalable approach we provide compelling evidence for the use of
seeds in producing targeted morphology and function. Specifically, patch size and
optical properties can be tailored in a predictive manner by adjusting the
density of seeds on the silica nanospheres as well as reagent concentrations
during growth. As a result, our process can be used to obtain colloidal
dispersions with localized surface plasmon resonance peaks anywhere in the range
400 nm to nearly 1300 nm. We confirm the scalability of our method by operating
the growth process for around 70 minutes. Apart from changes in the first few
minutes, the product properties remained rather stable and over a gram of high
quality silver patch coated silica could be recovered. Our approach opens up
exciting new avenues for plasmonics applications which typically require large
amounts of nanoparticles with specifically designed optical properties. These
include color and IR pigments, photocatalysts, and as light management
components in optoelectronic devices like photovoltaic cells.
APA:
Völkl, A., Toutouly, J., Drobek, D., Apeleo Zubiri, B., Spiecker, E., & Klupp Taylor, R. (2023). Gram-Scale Continuous Flow Synthesis of Silver-on-Silica Patchy Nanoparticles with Widely Tunable Resonances for Plasmonics Applications. ACS Applied Nano Materials, 6(12), 10126-10137. https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsanm.3c00869
MLA:
Völkl, Andreas, et al. "Gram-Scale Continuous Flow Synthesis of Silver-on-Silica Patchy Nanoparticles with Widely Tunable Resonances for Plasmonics Applications." ACS Applied Nano Materials 6.12 (2023): 10126-10137.
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