Heterodimers for in Situ Plasmonic Spectroscopy: Cu Nanoparticle Oxidation Kinetics, Kirkendall Effect, and Compensation in the Arrhenius Parameters
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2019

The ability to study oxidation, reduction, and other chemical transformations of nanoparticles in real time and under realistic conditions is a nontrivial task due to their small dimensions and the often challenging environment in terms of temperature and pressure. For scrutinizing oxidation of metal nanoparticles, visible light optical spectroscopy based on the plasmonic properties of the metal has been established as a suitable method. However, directly relying on the plasmonic resonance of metal nanoparticles as a built-in probe to track oxidation has a number of drawbacks, including the loss of optical contrast in the late oxidation stages. To address these intrinsic limitations, we present a plasmonic heterodimer-based nanospectroscopy approach, which enables continuous self-referencing by using polarized light to eliminate parasitic signals and provides large optical contrast all the way to complete oxidation. Using Au-Cu heterodimers and combining experiments with finite-difference time-domain simulations, we quantitatively analyze the oxidation kinetics of ca. 30 nm sized Cu nanoparticles up to complete oxidation. Taking the Kirkendall effect into account, we extract the corresponding apparent Arrhenius parameters at various extents of oxidation and find that they exhibit a significant compensation effect, implying that changes in the oxidation mechanism occur as oxidation progresses and the structure of the formed oxide evolves. In a wider perspective, our work promotes the use of model-system-type in situ optical plasmonic spectroscopy experiments in combination with electrodynamics simulations to quantitatively analyze and mechanistically interpret oxidation of metal nanoparticles and the corresponding kinetics in demanding chemical environments, such as in heterogeneous catalysis.

Binary alloys

Chemical analysis

Metal nanoparticles

Författare

David Albinsson

Chalmers, Fysik, Kemisk fysik

Sara Nilsson

Chalmers, Fysik, Kemisk fysik

Tomasz Antosiewicz

Uniwersytet Warszawski

Vladimir Zhdanov

Russian Academy of Sciences

Chalmers, Fysik, Biologisk fysik

Christoph Langhammer

Chalmers, Fysik, Kemisk fysik

Journal of Physical Chemistry C

1932-7447 (ISSN) 1932-7455 (eISSN)

Vol. 123 10 6284-6293

Ämneskategorier

Oorganisk kemi

Atom- och molekylfysik och optik

Annan fysik

DOI

10.1021/acs.jpcc.9b00323

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2022-04-06