One-pot synthesis of monodisperse Cu2O nanoparticle aggregates through an in situ seed generation process

Abstract

Monodisperse nanoparticle aggregates (NPAs) have great potential for applications in biomedical detection, light harvesting, and photocatalysis, but the synthesis of these materials using a one-pot method remains challenging due to the difficulty of the separation of the nucleation and growth processes. In this paper, monodisperse spherical Cu₂O NPAs were synthesized using a simple one-pot strategy. The size of the Cu₂O NPAs was controlled from 294 nm to 443 nm, and the size distribution was as narrow as δ = 8.1% and 5.6%. The key to the formation of NPAs with a narrow size distribution can be attributed to the in situ generated CuCl acting as seeds to control the aggregation process of the primary Cu₂O NPs. This method is extremely simple and scalable, and the reaction was conducted in air and aqueous solution at room temperature.