Influence of air exposure on structural isomers of silver nanoparticles

Abstract

The atomic structures of metallic nanoparticles dictate their chemical and physical properties, making their structural study under different chemical environments of importance. Here, electron microscopy finds that silver nanoparticles primarily adopt an icosahedron structure under air exposure, while previous reports showed that the face-centred cubic isomer is favoured when the nanoparticles are kept in vacuum.