Single NanoAlloy Particle Structure and Spectroscopy – SchNAPSS

Bimetallic nanoparticles (BNPs) are important for fundamental research and for applications as their physicochemical properties can be tuned by controlling their chemical composition, size and environment. But the in-depth understanding of the role of the various parameters, required for this tuning, is hampered by the polydispersity of typical samples, especially in the range of quantum effects below 10 nm. In this project we propose to circumvent these problems by performing experiments on individual aluminum-containing BNPs, prepared under controlled conditions. Environmental electron microscopy is used for structural characterization (alloying vs. segregation, core shell), whereas electronic spectroscopy gives access to the plasmonic response, one particle and one structure at a time. Single-particle results are then compared to ensemble-averaged measurements and multi-scale modelling.