title: Fabrication of flower-like silver structures through anisotropic growth.
abstract: Using a simple chemical reaction, a new nanostructure of silver, which we call a "flower-like silver structure", is produced. The flower-like silver structure consists of a silver core and many rod-like tips protruding out in three dimensions. Besides common face-centered-cubic (FCC) phase of silver, there exists hexagonal-close-packed (HCP) phase in these tips. The appearance of HCP silver is the result of rapid growth of silver nuclei when using CH(2)O or C(2)H(4)O as the reducing agent. The formation of the rod-like tips is caused by the anisotropic growth determined by the HCP phase and the directing role of formic acid, which is the oxidation product of CH(2)O. It is also found that the concentration of reactants, the kind of reducing agents and the sequence of adding reactants can influence the morphology and phase constitution of the final products.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Dongsheng
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Deren
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Minhua
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jiang