Characterization

Poster

Analysis of silver nanoparticles with different shapes by X-ray powder diffraction

Oleg Prymak, University of Duisburg-Essen / Inorganic Chemistry, Essen, Germany
Jens Helmlinger, University of Duisburg-Essen / Inorganic Chemistry, Essen, Germany
Kateryna Loza, University of Duisburg-Essen / Inorganic Chemistry, Essen, Germany
Martin Gocyla, Ernst Ruska-Center and Peter Grünberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany
Marc Heggen, Ernst Ruska-Center and Peter Grünberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany
Matthias Epple, University of Duisburg-Essen / Inorganic Chemistry, Essen, Germany

Nanostructured materials represent a well-established part of nanoscience today due to their tunable electrical, optical, magnetic and catalytic properties, and their potential in nanomedicine. One of the prominent examples for such materials are silver nanoparticles. Due to their antibacterial activity that can be influenced not only by the variation of their size, but also by their morphology. Therefore, a reproducible synthesis of silver nanoparticles with a uniform shape is of special interest.

We have synthesized PVP-coated silver nanoparticles by a modified polyol process and microwave-assisted reduction, producing well-defined morphologies (spheres, platelets, cubes, and rods). We demonstrate how the colloidal synthesis, optimized for the production of uniformly shaped silver nanoparticles, can be supported by available common techniques for the investigation of nanostructured materials. In addition to the colloid-chemical (DLS) and microscopic methods (SEM and TEM), the application of X-ray powder diffraction (PXRD) with different geometrical setups, including grazing incidence diffraction (GIXRD) and pole figure analysis, and the use of Rietveld refinement for the characterization of silver nanoparticles is presented. It is shown that this non-destructive method is well suited to describe not only the crystallographic properties of nanomaterials but also their size, shape and inner structure as well as their orientation on the surface.

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