Investigations of Electrochemical Silver Nanocrystal Growth on Hydrogen-Terminated Silicon(100)

Abstract

Silver nanoparticles having a mean height ranging from 2 to 20 nm have been electrodeposited on hydrogen-terminated n2+-Si(100) surfaces. The deposition of silver was carried out potentiostatically from dilute ([Ag+] = 1 mM) acetonitrile-based solutions using a large overpotential, E appl = −800 mV versus Ag+/Ag0, and a voltage pulse duration ranging from 2 to 25 ms. Under these conditions, less than 0.20 of a silver monolayer was deposited, and this silver was present on the surface as silver nanoparticles which were similar in size. The metallic nature of these nanoparticles was confirmed using selected area electron diffraction. The evolution of the areal density of nanoparticles, and the nanoparticle height were both tracked as a function of the plating pulse duration ex situ using noncontact atomic force microscopy. As the pulse duration was increased from 2 to 25 ms, the mean nanoparticle height increased from 2 to 20 nm while the areal density of nanoparticles concurrently increased from 1 to 3 × 108 cm-2 to 2−2.5 × 109 cm-2. This result shows conclusively that the nucleation of silver on Si(100) is progressive in this time domain.

Hybrid Electrochemical/Chemical Synthesis of Quantum Dots

“…Volmer-Weber growth is favored at coordinatively saturated surfaces, like graphite, that are characterized by a low interfacial free energy 18 (35 dyn cm -1 in the case of the graphite basal plane 25 ). Becca Stiger has demonstrated 26 that the Volmer-Weber deposition mechanism also operates at another low-energy surface: that of hydrogen-terminated Si(100). The NC-AFM image of Figure 2c, for example, shows a H-terminated Si(100) surface following the electrodeposition of 0.037 equivalent atomic layers of silver from an acetonitrile-based plating solution.…”

Metallic silver nanoparticle: a therapeutic agent in combination with antifungal drug against human fungal pathogen

“…To date, metallic nanoparticles are mostly prepared from metals such as Ag, Pt, Au and Pd [1]. A variety of techniques have been developed to synthesize metal nanoparticles including chemical reduction using a number of chemical reductants such as NaBH 4 , N 2 H 4 , NH 2 OH, ethanol, ethylene glycol and N,N-dimethyformamide (DMF) [2][3][4][5][6], aerosol technique [7], electrochemical or sonochemical deposition method [8,9], photochemical reduction method [10] and laser irradiation technique [11]. Still, most of the methods were in the development stage and often experienced various problems like stability, preparation, control of growth and aggregation of particles [12,13].…”

Extracellular biosynthesis, characterisation and in-vitro antibacterial potential of silver nanoparticles using Agaricus bisporus

“…Email: dhansdd@yahoo.co.in sonochemical deposition [4,5], photochemical reduction [6], laser irradiation technique [7] and sputter deposition. Recent studies of microorganisms in the synthesis of nanoparticles are a new and exciting area of research with considerable potential for development [8].…”