Self-Assembling silver nanocubes

Silver nanocubes Silver is one of the most impotant material for nanostructures because of its superior performance. Silver nanostructures have been synthesized with a range of different shapes, including spheres, discs, rods, wires, stars, prisms, right bipyramids, and cubes. Of these, single-crystal nanocubes are the most useful structure particularly for the production of gold nanocages as silver nanocubes serve as a sacrificial template. Synthesis Researchers of University of Washington have developed a polyol synthesis method which is a simple, robust and versatile one for producing silver nanocubes as monodispersed samples. Here silver atoms are formed by reducing AgNO3 precursor with ethylene glycol. Once the concentration of silver atoms has reached the supersaturation level, they will begin to nucleate and grow into silver nanostructures in the solution phase. the production rate of silver nanocubes can be improved by adding a trace amount of sodium sulfide (Na2S) or sodium h