R. Ferrando, Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry Department, University of Genova, Italy
Résumé :
Alloy nanoparticles (often known as nanoalloys) are bi- or multi-component metallic particles in the size range between 1-100 nm. Nanoalloys present a wide variety of structures and properties that make them suitable for many applications to catalysis, optics, magnetism and biomedicine. The practical use of nanoalloys has a very long history, which dates at least to the Roman age. However the precise characterization of their structures and properties is a recent achievement, mainly of the last two decades.
Nanoalloys are now a lively research subject, with several aspects worthy of further investigation. After an overview of their main modern applications, we focus on the structural aspects of nanoalloys, showing how the interplay between atoms of different chemical species leads to the formation of highly symmetric and very stable structures. But when scaling up the size of the nanoalloys, symmetry breaking phenomena appear naturally as a consequence of lattice mismatch and stress accumulation.
Professeur Invité à l’ICMN par Caroline et Pascal ANDREAZZA
