Thermodynamics and kinetics of monodisperse alloy nanoparticles synthesized through digestive ripening

It was recently reported that monodisperse Au/Ag alloy nanoparticles with a radius of similar to 2.8 nm could be synthesized via a digestive ripening process with starting materials of monodisperse Au and Ag nanoparticles with a radius of similar to 3.3 nm. We present thermodynamic and kinetic treatments of such a digestive ripening phenomenon in a binary system. A coarsening behavior based on the model successfully explains the experimentally observed digestive ripening behavior in a binary system. (C) 2009 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.