The growth of metal sulfide-Au/Ag nanocomposites in a nonpolar organic solvent

The combination of two or more chemically distinct components in one single nanostructure will undoubtedly lead to useful applications of nanomaterials in various areas. Herein, we report our experimental observations on composite nanosystems consisting of metal sulfide and Au and/or Ag noble metals. A number of characterization techniques, including transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution TEM (HRTEM), high-angle annular dark-field scanning TEM (HAADF-STEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) are used to characterize the morphology of the formed nanocomposites, and to address the following critical issues: i) the deposition behavior of the noble metals on the semiconductor nanocrystals; ii) the relationship between the morphology of the nanocomposites and the structure of the semiconductors; and iii) the mechanism accounting for the morphology formation of the final composite nanoparticles