Ag shell morphology on Au nanorod core: role of Ag precursor complex

Abstract

Multicomponent nanostructures have substantial potential in a wide range of applications due to their unique chemical, optical, and magnetic properties, which arise from their architecture, composition, and associated heterojunctions. Colloidal approaches provide synthetic routes to fabricate these multicomponent metal nanostructures; however the complexity of processing parameters many times limits reproducibility and minimization of undesired secondary structures. By comparing the architecture across a diverse set of processing parameters for Ag shell growth on Au nanorods (NRs), we demonstrate that the composition and size of the in situ formed Ag precursor complex are the most critical contribution to the growth mechanism. Systematic control of these characteristics by varying hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) concentration and aging time of the precursor-template solution, as well as pH and temperature of the final reaction solution, enables reproducible and continuous variation of the Ag shell architecture from conformal to rectilinear, and provides a unifying view of prior literature reports.