title: On the role of surface diffusion in determining the shape or morphology of noble-metal nanocrystals.
abstract: Controlling the shape or morphology of metal nanocrystals is central to the realization of their many applications in catalysis, plasmonics, and electronics. In one of the approaches, the metal nanocrystals are grown from seeds of certain crystallinity through the addition of atomic species. In this case, manipulating the rates at which the atomic species are added onto different crystallographic planes of a seed has been actively explored to control the growth pattern of a seed and thereby the shape or morphology taken by the final product. Upon deposition, however, the adsorbed atoms (adatoms) may not stay at the same sites where the depositions occur. Instead, they can migrate to other sites on the seed owing to the involvement of surface diffusion, and this could lead to unexpected deviations from a desired growth pathway. Herein, we demonstrated that the growth pathway of a seed is indeed determined by the ratio between the rates for atom deposition and surface diffusion. Our result suggests that surface diffusion needs to be taken into account when controlling the shape or morphology of metal nanocrystals.
authors.affiliation: The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.
authors.forename: Xiaohu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.forename: Shuifen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Maochang
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Hsin-Chieh
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Jinguo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Moon J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Younan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xia
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D004058:Diffusion; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D008958:Models, Molecular; D010165:Palladium / Q000737:chemistry*; D056951:Photoelectron Spectroscopy; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D010165:Palladium