Silver nanoparticles (NPs) of 5-15 nm are synthesized with the reduction of silver nitrate (AgNO3 ) by formaldehyde (HCHO) and using polyethylenemine (PEI) as a stabilizer. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis shows the size of the Ag NPs increases with the increase of HCHO contents. The absorption and emission peaks of the original colloids are red shifted with increasing the size of Ag NPs. The absorption and emission peaks are at 344 nm, 349 nm, 357 nm, 362 nm, 364 nm and 444 nm, 458 nm, 519 nm, 534 nm, 550 nm, respectively. The fluorescence intensities of the silver colloids increase with increasing the NPs size (or the contents of HCHO). With the diluted fold increasing, the fluorescence intensity of the diluted silver colloids increases firstly then decreases. Compared with that of the original silver colloids, the emission peaks are blue shifted. For the diluted silver colloids, when the fluorescence intensity is maximum, the emission peaks are all near 444 nm. The 16-fold diluted silver colloid gets to the maximum emission intensity when the mole ratio of AgNO3 and HCHO is 1:6.
Cu2O@Cu2O core-shell nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared by using solution phase strategy. It was found that Cu2O@Cu2O NPs were easily converted to Cu2O@Cu NPs with the help of polyvinylpyrrolidine (PVP) and excessive ascorbic acid (AA) in air at room temperature, which was an interesting phenomenon. The features of the two kinds of NPs were characterized by XRD, TEM and extinction spectra. Cu2O@Cu NPs with different shell thicknesses showed wide tunable optical properties for the localized surface plasmon (LSP) in metallic Cu. But Cu2O@Cu2O NPs did not indicate this feature. FTIR results reveal that Cu+ ions on the surface of Cu2O shell coordinate with N and O atoms in PVP and are further reduced to metallic Cu by excessive AA and then form a nucleation site on the surface of Cu2O nanocrystalline. PVP binds onto different sites to proceed with the reduction utill all the Cu sources in Cu2O shell are completely assumed.
