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Shape-controlled synthesis of metal nanocrystals

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Abstract

The ability to control the shape of metal nanocrystals is central to advances in many areas of modern science and technology, including catalysis, plasmonics, electronics, and biomedicine. This article provides a brief overview of our recent efforts toward the development of solution-phase methods for shape-controlled synthesis of metal nanocrystals. While the synthetic methods only involve simple redox reactions, we have been working diligently to understand the complex nucleation and growth mechanisms leading to the formation of metal nanocrystals with desired shapes and related properties. We hope this review will inspire new ideas and concepts in the general area of nanomaterial synthesis, expand our ability to engineer the properties of metals for various applications, and contribute to the realization of sustainable use for some of the scarcest materials.

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Acknowledgements

Our research on this subject was supported in part by a number of funding agencies, including NSF (DMR), NIH (NCI and NIBIB), ACS (PRF), ONR, DARPA, DOE, the Dreyfus Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, and the Packard Foundation. We are grateful to former group members and our collaborators for their invaluable contributions to this research over the past decade.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

    Younan Xia & Xiaohu Xia

  2. Southwest University, China

    Yi Wang

  3. Xiamen University, China

    Shuifen Xie

Authors
  1. Younan Xia
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  2. Xiaohu Xia
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  3. Yi Wang
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  4. Shuifen Xie
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Younan Xia.

Additional information

This article is based on the Symposium X: Frontiers of Materials Research lecture titled “Simple Chemistry for Complex Nanomaterials” presented by Younan Xia on April 11, 2012, at the MRS Spring Meeting in San Francisco, Calif.

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Xia, Y., Xia, X., Wang, Y. et al. Shape-controlled synthesis of metal nanocrystals. MRS Bulletin 38, 335–344 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs.2013.84

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