Nonspherical half-shells by ultrasonic cleavage of the hollow polyhedral particles in water

We present a facile route to preparing nonspherical half-shells of copper sulfide in which the octahedral mesocages of copper sulfide were grown on the substrate by a two-step electrochemical method first and then were cleaved into tetrahedral half-shells by ultrasonic vibration in water. The obtained half-shells are 1-3 mu m in lengths, and the shell thickness is uniform in similar to 100 nm. It is found that only centrosymmetric octahedral and six-pod shells can be equally split into two similar half-shells, Furthermore, a finite element analysis has been used to model the stress distribution in the octahedral CuS shell structure during ultrasonic vibration.