Interface structures of gold nanoparticles on TiO2 (110).
Scanning transmission electron microscopy and density functional theory are used to characterize atomic structures of nanoscale heterointerfaces between gold nanoparticles and a TiO2 (110) surface. It is found that when the gold nanoparticle size is smaller than a few nanometers, gold atoms preferentially attach to specific sites on the TiO2 surface and thus form an epitaxial and coherent heterointerface. Conversely, as the gold size becomes larger, the gold-TiO2 interface loses lattice coherency in order to accommodate the large lattice mismatch between the two dissimilar crystals.
Shibata
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Institute of Engineering Innovation, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan. shibata@sigma.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Goto
A
A
Matsunaga
K
K
Mizoguchi
T
T
Findlay
S D
SD
Yamamoto
T
T
Ikuhara
Y
Y