Tunable growth of silver nanobelts on monolithic activated carbon with size-dependent plasmonic response

Abstract

Silver is one of the most important materials in plasmonics. Tuning the size of various silver nanostructures has been actively pursued in the last decade. However, silver nanobelt, a typical one-dimensional silver nanostructure, has not been systematically studied as to tuning its size for controllable plasmonic response. Here we show that silver nanobelts, with mean width ranging from 45 to 105 nm and thickness at ca. 13 nm, can grow abundantly on monolithic activated carbon (MAC) through a galvanic-cell reaction mechanism. The widths of silver nanobelts are positively correlated to the growth temperatures. The width/thickness ratio of the silver nanobelts can be adjusted so that their transversal plasmonic absorption peaks can nearly span the whole visible light band, which endows them with different colours. This work demonstrates the great versatility of a simple, green and conceptually novel approach in controlled synthesis of noble metal nanostructures.

Synthesis of nanobelt-like 1-dimensional silver/nanocarbon hybrid materials for flexible and wearable electronics

“…Their real-world application, however, has so far been limited by the low electrical conductivity of NC materials after solution processing. This problem can potentially be overcome by using metal nanostructures, with silver (Ag) nanocubes 14 – 16 , nanoplates 17 – 20 , nanorods 21 , nanowires 22 , 23 , nanobelts 24 – 27 , nanofilaments 28 , and branched nanocrystals 29 , 30 having already been achieved using stabilizers and ionic species in solution to help control the shape and size. Reduction agents also play an important role in shaping these silver nanostructures by altering the reduction kinetics.…”

Size-tunable Synthesis of Silver Nanobelts Using a Polyaniline Derived Polymer as a Template

“…The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) image of the AgNBs, shown in the inset of Fig. 4b, also demonstrates that the growth direction is <200> which is different from the direction <110>, the typical direction of growth that is reported in literature910131821. Thus, because of this different growth direction, unique applications of the AgNBs could be expected in various fields, including catalysis, photo-electronics, and conductive material fabrications, as AgNBs are known to exhibit diverse properties that depend on the growth faces22.…”

“…Several methods have been reported for the preparation of AgNBs, including wet chemical 9 10 11 12 13 and electrochemical methods 14 15 16 17 18 . However, these procedures need the simultaneous addition of reducing agents and templates at either high or very low temperatures, which makes controlling the size and morphology of the system more complicated.…”

Observation of the formation of anisotropic silver microstructures by evanescent wave and electron microscopy

“…The (111) stacking fault is responsible for the occurrence of the 1/3{422} forbidden reflection (forbidden for perfect fcc structures) and has indeed been observed when the flat top surface of nano/micro structures of Ag and Au is parallel to the (111) plane of their fcc crystal structures [40][41][42].…”