1 research outputs found
Nanoparticle Clusters with Lennard-Jones Geometries
Noble gas and metal atoms form minimum-energy clusters.
Here, we present analogous agglomerates of gold nanoparticles formed
in oil-in-water emulsions. We exclude interfacial templating and nucleation-and-growth
as formation mechanisms of these supraparticles. Similar to atomic
clusters, the supraparticles form when a mobile precursor state can
reconfigure until the nanoparticles’ interactions with each
other and with the liquid–liquid interface are maximized. This
formation mechanism is in striking contrast to that previously reported
for microparticle clusters