Mechanistic Study of Silver Nanoparticle Formation on Conducting Polymer Surfaces

Abstract

Conducting polymer (polyaniline) sheets are shown to be active substrates to promote the growth of nanostructured silver thin films with highly tunable morphologies. Using the spontaneous electroless deposition of silver, we show that a range of nanostructured metallic features can be controllably and reproducibly formed over large surface areas. The structural morphology of the resulting metal-polymer nanocomposite is demonstrated to be sensitive to experimental parameters such as ion concentration, temperature, and polymer processing and can range from densely packed oblate nanosheets to bulk crystalline metals. The deposition mechanisms are explained using a diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) model to describe the semi-fractal-like growth of the metal nanostructures. We find these composite films to exhibit strong surface-enhanced Raman (SERS) activity, and the nanostructured features are optimized with respect to SERS activity using a self-assembled monolayer of mercapto-benzoic acid as a model Raman reporter. SERS enhancements are estimated to be on the order of 10(7). Through micro-Raman SERS mapping, these materials are shown to exhibit uniform SERS responses over macroscopic areas. These metal-polymer nanocomposites benefit from the underlying polymer's processability to yield SERS-active materials of almost limitless shape and size and show significant promise for future SERS-based sensing and detection schemes.

Simple and inexpensive electrodeposited silver/polyaniline composite counter electrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells

“…Based upon the above prospective, two silver reductants, a monomer (aniline) and a polymer (PANI), are always present in the reaction mixture [37]. A simple redox reaction between PANI and the silver salt becomes complicated in the presence of two reductants of silver ions.…”

Super-Poissonian Statistics of Photon Emission from Single CdSe-CdS Core-Shell Nanocrystals Coupled to Metal Nanostructures

“…Time trajectories of PL emission, decay dynamics and g (2) functions of individual g-NQDs drop casted on either quartz substrates or silver nanoflakes films [16] were measured by performing a standard single-dot, time-resolved PL experiment (see SI for experimental details).…”

Complex 3D nanocoral like structures formed by copper nanoparticle aggregation on nanostructured zinc oxide rods

“…This is supported by the TEM analysis showing direct attachment between the crystalline faces of the particles and rods. Diffusion limited aggregation (DLA) is often used to model aggregate structures and has been applied to nanoparticle aggregation in the past [13,14]. A custom written MATLAB code was used to simulate the nanoparticles structures formed by DLA by employing a random walk in three dimensions to simulate the particle movements.…”