Variant shape growth of nanoparticles of metallic Fe-Pt, Fe-Pd and Fe-Pt-Pd alloys

We report the controlled syntheses of Fe-Pt, Fe-Pd and Fe-Pt-Pd nanoparticles having different isolated shapes including sphere, cube, octopod-cube, star, rod, bilobe, tetrahedron, or multipod with size of 5-50 nm. The formation of such a rich variety of shapes was made possible by controlling the synthetic conditions (e.g. nature and concentration of the precursors, reaction time, temperature and atmosphere) of a thermal decomposition and reduction of precursors in the presence of surfactants. From the results of the investigation, the possible connection between formation of different shapes and the symmetry of the nuclei as well as the divergent kinetics of particle growth have been examined and discussed.