Molecular electronics was proposed as a strong candidate to conventional electronics and generated much interest from the past decade due to its intriguing properties and applications. Along this line of research, chacogenolate-protected metal nanoparticles attract intensive studies because of their established preparation method and theoretically predicted performance. Gold system was extensively studied. However, silver lacks systematic exploration despite its interesting properties. The main challenge that obstacles the above research is to synthesize small and uniform NPs with good stability and final yield for characterization and practical use. In this presentation, we report our recent effort to address this challenge. We synthesized octanethiolate-protected Ag NPs and established experimental conditions for best optimization. Specifically, the first detailed and systematic parallel comparison between different precipitation solvents will be discussed in terms of their effects on particle size, homogeneity and yield, with the morphologies and underlying mechanisms being investigated using microscopic and spectroscopic techniques.

Effect of precipitation solvents on size, homogeneity, and yield in the two-phase Brust-Schiffrin synthesis of octanethiolate-protected silver nanoparticles

244th National Meeting (2012)

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