Melting and phase diagram of Au-Cu alloy at nanoscale

Abstract

The Au-Cu nanoalloys (NPs) were produced by NaBH4 co-reduction from the mixture precursor solution of component Au and Cu, under the protection of sodium citrate stabilizer. The Au-Cu NPs encapsulated in SiO2, Au5Cu5@SiO2 NPs, were then synthesized by the Stöber method based on the obtained Au-Cu NPs. The microstructure and particle sizes were characterized by TEM observation. The phase transition temperature of Au-Cu@SiO2 was determined by DSC measurement. The surface tension, surface segregation and surface energy of Au-Cu NPs as a function of particle size and temperature were calculated by the theoretical model based on the thermodynamic properties of pure component of Au and Cu NPs, respectively. The thermodynamic parameters of Au-Cu system at various nanoscales were optimized on the basis of experimental and theoretical results in this work and previous results in literature. Based on the obtained the thermodynamic data set, the nano phase diagrams of the Au-Cu system at nanoscale were calculated, and the thermodynamic properties of Au-Cu nanometer system were obtained. The results show that the calculated results agree well with experimental work.