Ultrasonic alloying of preformed gold and silver nanoparticles

Alloyed gold/silver nanoparticles with a core/shell structure are produced from preformed gold and silver nanoparticles during ultrasonic treatment at different intensities in water and in the presence of surface-active species. Preformed gold nanoparticles with an average diameter of 15 + or - 5 nm are prepared by the citrate reduction of chloroauric acid in water, and silver nanoparticles (38 + or - 7 nm) are formed after reduction of silver nitrate by sodium borohydride. Bare binary gold/silver nanoparticles with a core/shell structure are formed in aqueous solution after 1 h of sonication at high ultrasonic intensity. Cationic-surfactant-coated preformed gold and silver nanoparticles become gold/silver-alloy nanoparticles after 3 h of sonication in water at 55 W cm(-2), whereas only fusion of isolated gold and silver nanoparticles is observed after ultrasonic treatment in the presence of an anionic surfactant. As the X-ray diffraction profile of alloyed gold/silver nanoparticles reveals split, shifted, and disappeared peaks, the face-centered-cubic crystalline structure of the binary nanoparticles is defect-enriched by temperatures that can be as high as several thousand Kelvin inside the cavitation bubbles during ultrasonic treatment.