Structural Evolution of Silver Nanoparticles during Wet-Chemical Synthesis

The formation of silver nanoparticles during the reduction with glucose in the presence of poly(N-vinyl pyrrolidone) as capping agent was followed for more than 3000 min. First, spherical silver nanoparticles are formed, but in later stages, an increasing fraction of nanotriangles and also a few nanorods develop. Both spherical and trigonal nanoparticles grow with time, indicating separate nucleation pathways. The domain size in the spherical nanoparticles increases proportionally to the particle diameter and is always about 1/4 of the diameter, indicating that twinned seeds are formed very early in the process and then simply grow by extending their domains. The lattice constant of the nanoparticles is systematically increased in comparison to microcrystalline silver (4.0877 vs 4.08635 angstrom) but did not change as a function of particle diameter. A thorough analysis of the texture coefficient, supported by transmission electron microscopy data, showed that the apparently spherical particles are in fact flattened pentagonal prisms, which typically lie on their flat pentagonal face. Neither the presence of oxygen nor the presence of ambient light had any influence on the particle properties.