No Cover Image

Journal article 36 views 12 downloads

Stabilization of 2D Raft Structures of Au Nanoclusters with up to 60 Atoms by a Carbon Support

Sean Lethbridge Orcid Logo, Theodoros Pavloudis Orcid Logo, James McCormack, Thomas Slater Orcid Logo, Joseph Kioseoglou Orcid Logo, Richard Palmer Orcid Logo

Small Science

Swansea University Author: Richard Palmer Orcid Logo

  • 66572_VoR.pdf

    PDF | Version of Record

    © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.

    Download (1.59MB)

Check full text

DOI (Published version): 10.1002/smsc.202400093

Abstract

Herein, the stabilization of 2D single-atom high gold rafts containing up to ≈60 Au atoms on amorphous carbon, fabricated by sputtering of atoms and imaged by aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, is demonstrated. These rafts deviate from the established cluster transition...

Full description

Published in: Small Science
ISSN: 2688-4046 2688-4046
Published: Wiley 2024
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa66572
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Abstract: Herein, the stabilization of 2D single-atom high gold rafts containing up to ≈60 Au atoms on amorphous carbon, fabricated by sputtering of atoms and imaged by aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, is demonstrated. These rafts deviate from the established cluster transition from 2D to 3D Au structural motifs in free clusters, which occurs in the region of 10–14 atoms. The experimental findings by performing explicit ab initio calculations of Aun (n = 3–147) clusters on graphene are supported and the role of cluster–surface interactions in the stabilization of the 2D single-atom high Au cluster rafts on graphene is revealed. The transition from equilibrium 2D–3D structures is delayed to n = 19, while metastable 2D single-atom high rafts compete with 3D structures up to about n = 60 atoms. The catalytic activity of supported nanoclusters depends strongly on their structure (and carbon-based supports are used for a number of reactions); therefore these results are relevant to the catalytic performance of nanocluster-based catalysts.
Keywords: 2D rafts; AC-STEM; DFT calculations; nano-clusters
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Funders: Leverhulme Trust. Grant Number: RPG-2020-226; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Grant Number: EP/V029797/2; National Infrastructures for Research and Technology. Grant Number: pr015006

Similar Items