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Fabrication of Periodic Gold Nanocup Arrays Using Colloidal Lithography

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Synthesis of hexagonal close-packed gold nanostructures.

Xiao Huang¹, Shaozhou Li, Yizhong Huang

¹School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore.

Nature Communications

|April 28, 2011

Summary

Researchers synthesized stable hexagonal close-packed (hcp) gold (Au) square sheets, a previously unobserved structure. These ultrasmall gold structures, under 6 nm thick, are stable at ambient conditions.

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Area of Science:

Materials Science
Nanotechnology
Solid-State Physics

Background:

Solid gold typically exists in a stable face-centered cubic (fcc) crystal structure.
Synthesizing colloidal gold exclusively in a hexagonal close-packed (hcp) form stable under ambient conditions has not been achieved.

Purpose of the Study:

To report the first in situ synthesis of dispersible hexagonal close-packed (hcp) gold (Au) square sheets.
To investigate the stability and structural transformations of these novel gold nanostructures.

Main Methods:

In situ synthesis of gold square sheets on graphene oxide.
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) for structural analysis.
Experimental analysis of structures with ultrasmall dimensions.

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Main Results:

Successfully synthesized dispersible hcp Au square sheets (200-500 nm edge length, ~2.4 nm thickness) on graphene oxide.
Observed transformation from hcp to fcc structure upon electron beam exposure during TEM analysis.
Fcc segments appeared as the thickness increased from ~2.4 nm to 6 nm.

Conclusions:

The pure hcp gold structure is stable and isolable for ultrasmall dimensions, specifically for square sheets less than approximately 6 nm thick.
This finding challenges previous assumptions about gold's stable crystal structures at the nanoscale.
Opens new avenues for designing and utilizing gold nanomaterials with unique structural properties.