Shape fluctuations in nanoparticles strongly influence their stability. Here, we introduce a quantitative model of such shape fluctuations and apply this model to the important case of Pt-shell/transition metal-core nanoparticles. By using a Gibbs distribution for the initial shapes, we find that there is typically enough thermal energy at room temperature to excite random shape fluctuations in...

Mesoporous-silica-coated Gd2O3:Eu/silica nanoparticles were synthesized by a multistep chemical process and characterized by XRD, TEM and N2 adsorption/desorption isotherms in terms of size, morphology and porosity. The core Gd2O3:Eu obtained by this method was highly luminescent upon excitation, giving the function of cell imaging upon incubation with the human cervical carcinoma (HeLa) cells....

We use infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopies to investigate the optically active phonon modes in InP nanoparticles and InP/II–VI core-shell nanoparticles fabricated by similar colloidal chemistry methods. The IR transmission spectra of several InP nanoparticle samples exhibit a common absorption feature, which we assign to the Fröhlich mode. The Raman results for the same samples show transver...

Polysaccharides are promising candidates for manufacturing biocompatible core-shell nanoparticles with potential in vivo use. Superparamagnetic magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) have prospective application in both diagnosis and therapy, and so developing a novel polysaccharide shell on MNP core is of great challenge. MNPs were prepared by coprecipitation, then the surface of purified MNPs was coa...

We have succeeded in preparing Au/Pd core-shell nanoparticles in apo-ferritin and improving the catalytic reactivity of olefin hydrogenation relative to Pd0 nanoparticles in the cage.

Here we demonstrate that the anomalous magnetic properties of iron oxide nanoparticles are correlated with defects in their interior. We studied the evolution of microstructure and magnetic properties of biphasic core|shell Fe(1-x)O|Fe(3-δ)O4 nanoparticles synthesized by thermal decomposition during their topotaxial oxidation to single-phase nanoparticles. Geometric phase analysis of high-resol...

The optical properties of core-shell nanoparticles consisting of a ZnO shell grown on Ag and Au nanoparticle cores by a solution method have been investigated. Both the ZnO/Ag and ZnO/Au particles exhibit strongly enhanced near-band-edge UV emission from the ZnO when excited at 325 nm. Furthermore, the UV intensity increases with the metal nanoparticle concentration, with 60-fold and 17-fold en...

Magnetically anisotropic as well as magnetic core-shell nanoparticles (CS-NPs) with controllable properties are highly desirable in a broad range of applications. With this background, a setup for the synthesis of heterostructured magnetic core-shell nanoparticles, which relies on (optionally pulsed) DC plasma gas condensation has been developed. We demonstrate the synthesis of elemental nickel...

Bimetallic core-shell nanoparticles are a class of near-surface alloy catalyst for which there is a high degree of control over size and composition. A challenge for theory is to understand the relationship between their structure and catalytic function and provide guidelines to design new catalysts that take advantage of material properties arising at the nanoscale. In this work, we use densit...