Colloidal synthesis and self-assembly of COPt3 nanocrystals

Reduction of platinum acetylacetonate and thermodecomposition of cobalt carbonyl in the presence of 1-adamantanecarboxylic acid were employed in different coordinating mixtures to produce monodisperse, highly crystalline COPt3 nanoparticles. The mean particle size can be varied from 1.5 to 7.2 nm by controlling the reaction conditions and the type of coordinating mixture. As-synthesized COPt3 particles represent single crystal domains and have chemically disordered face-centered cubic (fee) structure. Nearly spherical COPt3 nanocrystals were found to assemble into two- (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) structures. An AB(5) type superlattice is observed by TEM after mixing two nanoparticle samples with different mean sizes. Slow precipitation led to the formation of facetted colloidal crystals with sizes up to 20 mum.