TY - JOUR
T1 - Site-Specific Wetting of Iron Nanocubes by Gold Atoms in Gas-Phase Synthesis
AU - Vernieres, Jerome
AU - Steinhauer, Stephan
AU - Zhao, Junlei
AU - Grammatikopoulos, Panagiotis
AU - Ferrando, Riccardo
AU - Nordlund, Kai
AU - Djurabekova, Flyura
AU - Sowwan, Mukhles
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
PY - 2019/7/3
Y1 - 2019/7/3
N2 - A key challenge in nanotechnology is the rational design of multicomponent materials that beat the properties of their elemental counterparts. At the same time, when considering the material composition of such hybrid nanostructures and the fabrication process to obtain them, one should favor the use of nontoxic, abundant elements in view of the limited availability of critical metals and sustainability. Cluster beam deposition offers a solvent- and, therefore, effluent-free physical synthesis method to achieve nanomaterials with tailored characteristics. However, the simultaneous control of size, shape, and elemental distribution within a single nanoparticle in a small-size regime (sub-10 nm) is still a major challenge, equally limiting physical and chemical approaches. Here, a single-step nanoparticle fabrication method based on magnetron-sputtering inert-gas condensation is reported, which relies on selective wetting of specific surface sites on precondensed iron nanocubes by gold atoms. Using a newly developed Fe–Au interatomic potential, the growth mechanism is decomposed into a multistage model implemented in a molecular dynamics simulation framework. The importance of growth kinetics is emphasized through differences between structures obtained either experimentally or computationally, and thermodynamically favorable configurations determined via global optimization techniques. These results provide a roadmap for engineering complex nanoalloys toward targeted applications.
AB - A key challenge in nanotechnology is the rational design of multicomponent materials that beat the properties of their elemental counterparts. At the same time, when considering the material composition of such hybrid nanostructures and the fabrication process to obtain them, one should favor the use of nontoxic, abundant elements in view of the limited availability of critical metals and sustainability. Cluster beam deposition offers a solvent- and, therefore, effluent-free physical synthesis method to achieve nanomaterials with tailored characteristics. However, the simultaneous control of size, shape, and elemental distribution within a single nanoparticle in a small-size regime (sub-10 nm) is still a major challenge, equally limiting physical and chemical approaches. Here, a single-step nanoparticle fabrication method based on magnetron-sputtering inert-gas condensation is reported, which relies on selective wetting of specific surface sites on precondensed iron nanocubes by gold atoms. Using a newly developed Fe–Au interatomic potential, the growth mechanism is decomposed into a multistage model implemented in a molecular dynamics simulation framework. The importance of growth kinetics is emphasized through differences between structures obtained either experimentally or computationally, and thermodynamically favorable configurations determined via global optimization techniques. These results provide a roadmap for engineering complex nanoalloys toward targeted applications.
KW - Fe–Au nanoparticles
KW - growth kinetics
KW - inert gas condensation
KW - metastability
KW - wetting
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85065407632&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/advs.201900447
DO - 10.1002/advs.201900447
M3 - 文章
AN - SCOPUS:85065407632
SN - 2198-3844
VL - 6
JO - Advanced Science
JF - Advanced Science
IS - 13
M1 - 1900447
ER -