Silver nanocrystals are widely used in various applications related to photonics, electronics, catalysis, sensing, and biomedicine. There has been progress on the shape-controlled synthesis of silver nanocrystals with the aim of understanding their structure-property relationships and optimizing their performance. However, a comprehensive understanding of icosahedral silver nanocrystals is still lacking.

Younan Xia, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, and colleagues have developed a robust route for the easy synthesis of uniform icosahedral silver nanocrystals with controllable sizes and in relatively large quantities. The synthesis simply involves the reduction of silver trifluoroacetate by oleylamine in the presence of 1,2-dichlorobenzene at an elevated temperature between 140 °C and 200 °C.

The icosahedral silver nanocrystals show strong localized surface plasmon resonance, with a tunable peak position depending on the particle size. According to the researchers, the availability of icosahedral silver nanocrystals with uniform, tunable sizes could allow the research community to actively explore their plasmonic and catalytic properties, as well as related applications.

• Facile Synthesis of Silver Icosahedral Nanocrystals with Uniform and Controllable Sizes,
  Wenxia Wang, Shan Zhou, Min Shen, Zachary D. Hood, Kaijun Xiao, Younan Xia,
  ChemNanoMat 2018.
  https://doi.org/10.1002/cnma.201800255