Metal Cation Valency Dependence in Morphology Evolution of Cu2-x S Nanodisk Seeds and Their Pseudomorphic Cation Exchanges.

Abstract

A crucial parameter in the design of semiconductor nanoparticles (NPs) with controllable optical, magnetic, electronic, and catalytic properties is the morphology. Herein, we demonstrate the potential of additive metal cations with variable valency to direct the morphology evolution of copper-deficient Cu2-x S nanoparticles in the process of seed-mediated growth. In particular, the djurleite Cu1.94 S seed could evolve from disk into tetradecahedron in the presence of tin(IV) cations, whereas they merely formed sharp hexagonal nanodisks with tin(II) cations. In addition to djurleite Cu1.94 S, the tin(IV) cations could be generalized to direct the growth of roxbyite Cu1.8 S and covellite CuS nanodisk seeds into tetradecahedra. We further perform pseudomorphic cation exchanges of Cu1.94 S tetradecahedra with Zn2+ and Cd2+ to produce polyhedral zinc sulfide (ZnS) and cadmium sulfide (CdS) NPs. Moreover, we achieve Cu1.8 S/ZnS and Cu1.94 S/CdS tetradecahedral heterostructures via partial cation exchange, which are otherwise inaccessible by traditional synthetic approaches.