Characterisation of the morphology of surface-assembled Au nanoclusters on amorphous carbon

Dearg, Malcolm, Lethbridge, Sean, McCormack, James, Palmer, Richard E. and Slater, Thomas J. A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0372-1551 2024. Characterisation of the morphology of surface-assembled Au nanoclusters on amorphous carbon. Nanoscale 16 (22) , pp. 10827-10832. 10.1039/d4nr00978a

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Abstract

In this study, aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy is employed to investigate the morphology of Au clusters formed from the aggregation of single atoms sputtered onto an amorphous carbon surface. The morphologies of surface-assembled clusters of N > 100 atoms are referenced against the morphologies of size-selected clusters determined from previously published results. We observe that surface-assembled clusters (at the conditions employed here) are approximately spherical in shape. The structural isomers of the imaged clusters have also been identified, and the distribution of structural types is broadly in agreement with those from size-selected cluster deposition sources. For clusters of approximately 147 atoms, we find a preference for icosahedra over decahedra and truncated octahedra, but at this size there is a high proportion of unidentified/amorphous structures. At around 309 atoms, we find a preference for decahedra over icosahedra and truncated octahedra, but over half the structures remain unidentifiable/amorphous. For sizes above approximately 561 atoms we are able to identify most of the structures, and find decahedra are still the most favoured, although in competition with single-crystal fcc morphologies. The similarity in structure between surface-assembled and size-selected clusters from a cluster source provides evidence of the relevance of size-selected cluster studies to clusters synthesised by other, industrially relevant, methodologies.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Chemistry Cardiff Catalysis Institute (CCI)
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, Start Date: 2024-05-14
Publisher:	Royal Society of Chemistry
ISSN:	2040-3364
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	21 May 2024
Date of Acceptance:	13 May 2024
Last Modified:	02 Jul 2024 14:24
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/169054

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