Anisotropic Nanomaterials: Silver-Copper Oxide Core-Partial Shell Nanoparticles

Abstract

I 1 AbstractAnisotropic materials have a variety of unique properties and potential applications, including catalysis and directed assembly. As such, production of anisotropic nanoparticles is of interest. In this work, the production of core-partial shell silver nanocube-copper oxide nanoparticles, is the goal. To produce these particles, the silver nanocubes are deposited onto polystyrene thin films, and are embedded into the polymer to a controlled depth. This allows for control over the exposed surface, which is the surface available for coating with copper oxide. These nanoparticles can be removed from the surface by dissolving the polystyrene, allowing their in-solution properties to be probed.In order to produce these structures, several set-ups were tried, leading to the development of a promising final set-up. Each of the set-ups had different stirring rates, stability of the attached slide and production of bubbles, which can interfere with the production of copper oxide shells.With the initial set-ups, the order and rate of addition of the reducing agent, hydrazine, or the copper precursor, copper nitrate, were varied, with and without lactic acid and for both supported and embedded nanocubes. The produced morphologies varied for different order and rate of addition of precursors, therefore, allowing for control over the produced morphology by changing these parameters.With the final set-up, an investigation on the amount of copper precursor, sodium hydroxide, and lactic acid for a constant amount of reducing agent was investigated. It was observed that without lactic acid, the produced shells did not increase in coverage II with increased concentrations. However, with lactic acid, the produced structures increase in thickness from low to intermediate concentrations, but at the highest concentration, very little copper oxide was deposited on the cubes' surfaces, as growth had occurred in solution.With this type of method, core-partial shell particles can be successfully produced. Future work should involve further effort for the optimization of the order of addition, and concentrations of precursors, for fine control over the produced structures. III Acknowledgments

Studying the Generation of Hot Electrons in Plasmonic Nanoparticle Monolayers

“…Once the surface was fully coated, the spin coater was spun for 30 seconds at 4000 rpm. 53,54,55 The slide was removed and placed on a large glass petri dish. These steps were repeated for each slide.…”