The nanostructures are cylinders of diameter of 150nm and height of 50nm. The sample was heated in a hot plate from 20º to 300ºC in 15 minutes and let cool back down during about 4 hours.
Should I expect the diameter to increase, decrease or neither?
Preliminary results shows that the diameters decrease about 10nm, measured through optical response of LSPR (comparing with simulated results and measurements before the heat treatment).
I cannot do SEM at the time being.
Can anyone please point me to some references?
Thanks a lot.
Definitely there will be a temperature effect on either diameter or height of the nano particles. In your case, after heat treatment, you can also check cross-sectional AFM, SEM or TEM. You can see the clear change.
Hi Davi, gold atoms are extremely mobile on the atomic / nanoscale, so you should expect a significant amount of diffusion. I suspect that the aspect ratio of your cylinders will change dramatically, and you will probably get something more like a layer of rounded, touching pyramids.
Thanks for your answers Venkata and Phil
I tried to simplify at maximum my question, so I left out some other aspects about the sample in question. The gold nanoparticles were deposited on top of several other materials that can be contaminated by SEM or TEM. For now, I cannot do them, because there is still some optical characterization to be done.
I also left out that the nanoparticles are 600nm apart from each other in X and Y, so I guess they wont touch. I highly appreciate the insight that their aspect ratio will change, since I see confirmation of that in the preliminary optical spectra that I already have. Your answers were exactly what I was looking for!
Thanks once again for your time.
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