Formation kinetics of silver triangular nanoplates

We addressed the wavelength dependence of the photochemical synthesis of silver nanoplates, giving special attention to the particles growth at early stages of the reaction. By using wavelengths out of resonance with the surface plasmon peak of the initial seeds, we could clearly identify two different stages in the particles growth: the first one, at the beginning of the reaction, in which the consumption of Ag+ is very small, and the second one, in which the consumption of Ag+ is much larger. The correlation of this data with the morphological changes of the particles helped us to both corroborate some aspects of the growth mechanism proposed by Maillard et al.(1) and find that the main factor determining the particle anisotropy takes place at the early stages of the reaction and does not appear to be correlated with the excitation of the surface plasmon resonance or incident wavelength. We hope that the strong evidence presented here, based on a set of independent measurements, will help shed new light in the mechanism of shape control in this complex system.