Dealloying Kinetics of AgAu Nanoparticles by In Situ Liquid-Cell Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 20; no. 3; pp. 1944 - 1951
• Main Authors: Liu, Pan, Chen, Qing, Ito, Yoshikazu, Han, Jiuhui, Chu, Shufen, Wang, Xiaodong, Reddy, Kolan Madhav, Song, Shuangxi, Hirata, Akihiko, Chen, Mingwei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 11.03.2020
• Subjects: In situ liquid-cell STEM; Nanoporous gold; Initial length scale; Dealloying; Volume shrinkage
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b05216

Understanding the formation and evolution of bicontinuous nanoporous structure during dealloying has been one of the most challenging subjects of dealloying research. However, previous in situ investigations either suffer from insufficient spatial resolution (e.g., X-ray tomography) or lack morphology visualization and mass information (e.g., scanning tunneling microscopy). In this work, we report the kinetics of the whole course of dealloying by utilizing liquid-cell aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy. With Z-contrast imaging analysis, the in situ sub-nanoscale characterization reveals two new phenomena, an initial period of dealloying indicative of an initial length scale for bulk dealloying and a large volume shrinkage in a nanoscale alloy precursor. We explain the particle-size-dependent volume shrinkage with the formation of a dense shell and quantify the dependence with a simple geometric model. These insights into the mechanisms of dealloying will enable deliberate designs of nanoporous structures.