Anisotropic growth of silver nanoparticles on preliminarily synthesized seeds

The growth process of nonspherical nanoparticles on preliminarily synthesized gold-silver seeds in micellar surfactant media is studied in this article. The effect of experimental factors, such as the concentration of initial compounds and formation of intermediate insoluble compounds, on nanoparticle size and geometry in the output sole is investigated. It is concluded that the slow generation of silver ions, causing layer-by-layer directed growth, is a necessary factor of anisotropic nanoparticles formation. The optimized parameters of synthesis enable one to control the geometry of final sols and increase the yield of resulting anisotropic nanoparticles.