UV-light induced sintering behavior of Au nanoclusters

INOR 178

S. Amin Sardar, amin@engineering.ucsb.edu1, Thomas F. Jaramillo, tom0220@engineering.ucsb.edu2, Lucas Cameron, lcameron@u.washington.edu3, Michael Sushchikh, msush@engineering.ucsb.edu1, and Eric McFarland, mcfar@engineering.ucsb.edu2. (1) Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5080, (2) Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5080, (3) Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
Nanoparticulate gold has received much attention in recent years as small Au particles (< 10 nm) catalyze a wide variety of reactions, quite unlike its bulk counterpart. The sintering of Au nanoclusters is an important area of study as the resulting large clusters lose their catalytic activity. Au nanoclusters of a particular size can be reliably prepared by encapsulation within block copolymer micelles; in this work, we have prepared gold nanoclusters from micelles on different supports and used UV light irradiation in air – a polymer-removing procedure – in order to investigate sintering effects. The UV radiation was found to not only clean the substrate and remove the polymer, but it also sintered the Au nanoclusters such that ~ 5 nm particles grew to ~ 50 nm. Results from Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) will be presented.
 

Nanoscience: Synthesis
7:00 PM-9:00 PM, Sunday, 13 March 2005 Convention Center -- Hall D, Poster

Division of Inorganic Chemistry

The 229th ACS National Meeting, in San Diego, CA, March 13-17, 2005