title: Nucleation of gold nanoparticle superclusters from solution.
abstract: Measurements of the solubility curve of a quasi-monodisperse gold nanoparticle solution are given. Temperature quenches from the one-phase to the two-phase regime yielded superclusters of the nanoparticle solid phase with sizes that depended on the quench depth. Classical nucleation theory was used to describe these sizes using a value of the surface tension for the nanoparticle solid phase of 0.042 erg/cm2. This value is consistent with molecule size scaling of the surface tension. In total these results show that suspensions of nanoparticles act like molecular solutions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cingarapu
authors.forename: K J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Klabunde
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chakrabarti
authors.forename: C M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Sorensen