Controllable Synthesis and Surface Wettability of Flower-Shaped Silver Nanocube-Organosilica Hybrid Colloidal Nanoparticles

Synthesis of hybrid colloidal particles with complex and hierarchical structures is attracting much interest theoretically and technically in recent years, but still remains a tremendous challenge. Here, we present a mild and controllable wet-chemical method for the synthesis of silver nanocube (Ag NC)-organosilica hybrid particles with finely tuned numbers (with one, two, three, four, five, or six) and sizes of organosilica petals, by simply controlling the affinity with Ag NC/nature, amount, and prehydrolysis process of alkoxysilanes. The morphologies of hybrid colloidal particles have an obvious influence on the surface wettability of the hybrid particle-based films. More and larger organosilica petals can increase the surface hydrophobicity of the hybrid particle-based films.