Large-scale growth and shape evolution of Cu2O cubes

Uniform crystalline Cu2O cubes were synthesized in high yield by reducing the copper-citrate complex solution with glucose. A series of shape evolutions of Cu2O particles from the transient species such as multi-pod and star-shaped particles to cubic crystals have been arrested based on TEM and SEM observation. The higher growth rate along <111> induces the shrinking of the eight {111} faces, while six {100} faces remained to form Cu2O cubes because of their lower growth rate. The experimental results suggest that the building blocks with desired architecture can be selectively synthesized by programming the growth parameters in the initial synthetic scheme.