Seed-mediated successive growth of gold particles accomplished by UV irradiation: a photochemical approach for size-controlled synthesis

Preparation of monodispersed metal nanoparticles of different size has enormous importance in nanotechnology. Currently, the size controlled synthesis of nanoparticles is carried out either by using the capping property of a stabilizer that restrict the particle growth at the intermediate stage or by exploiting the variable size of the water pool of a reverse micelle as template. We have reported here a powerful and general method to prepare gold nanoparticles of controlled size by through UV irradiation technique. First small particles are prepared and then they are used as seed to prepare bigger particles by photoactivation technique. Metal particles of gold of different size (similar to 20-80 nm) have been synthesized by this method. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.