TY - JOUR
T1 - Experimental evidence of icosahedral and decahedral packing in one-dimensional nanostructures
AU - Velázquez-Salazar, J. Jesús
AU - Esparza, Rodrigo
AU - Mejía-Rosales, Sergio Javier
AU - Estrada-Salas, Rubén
AU - Ponce, Arturo
AU - Deepak, Francis Leonard
AU - Castro-Guerrero, Carlos
AU - José-Yacamán, Miguel
PY - 2011/8/23
Y1 - 2011/8/23
N2 - The packing of spheres is a subject that has drawn the attention of mathematicians and philosophers for centuries and that currently attracts the interest of the scientific community in several fields. At the nanoscale, the packing of atoms affects the chemical and structural properties of the material and, hence, its potential applications. This report describes the experimental formation of 5-fold nanostructures by the packing of interpenetrated icosahedral and decahedral units. These nanowires, formed by the reaction of a mixture of metal salts (Au and Ag) in the presence of oleylamine, are obtained when the chemical composition is specifically Ag/Au = 3:1. The experimental images of the icosahedral nanowires have a high likelihood with simulated electron micrographs of structures formed by two or three Boerdijk-Coxeter-Bernal helices roped on a single structure, whereas for the decahedral wires, simulations using a model of adjacent decahedra match the experimental structures. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the synthesis of nanowires formed by the packing of structures with 5-fold symmetry. These icosahedral nanowire structures are similar to those of quasicrystals, which can only be formed if at least two atomic species are present and in which icosahedral and decahedral packing has been found for bulk crystals.
AB - The packing of spheres is a subject that has drawn the attention of mathematicians and philosophers for centuries and that currently attracts the interest of the scientific community in several fields. At the nanoscale, the packing of atoms affects the chemical and structural properties of the material and, hence, its potential applications. This report describes the experimental formation of 5-fold nanostructures by the packing of interpenetrated icosahedral and decahedral units. These nanowires, formed by the reaction of a mixture of metal salts (Au and Ag) in the presence of oleylamine, are obtained when the chemical composition is specifically Ag/Au = 3:1. The experimental images of the icosahedral nanowires have a high likelihood with simulated electron micrographs of structures formed by two or three Boerdijk-Coxeter-Bernal helices roped on a single structure, whereas for the decahedral wires, simulations using a model of adjacent decahedra match the experimental structures. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the synthesis of nanowires formed by the packing of structures with 5-fold symmetry. These icosahedral nanowire structures are similar to those of quasicrystals, which can only be formed if at least two atomic species are present and in which icosahedral and decahedral packing has been found for bulk crystals.
KW - aberration-corrected electron microscopy
KW - Boerdijk-Coxeter-Bernal helix
KW - decahedra
KW - icosahedra
KW - nanowires
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U2 - 10.1021/nn202495r
DO - 10.1021/nn202495r
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:80052073762
SN - 1936-0851
VL - 5
SP - 6272
EP - 6278
JO - ACS Nano
JF - ACS Nano
IS - 8
ER -