Facile synthesis of pentacle gold–copper alloy nanocrystals and their plasmonic and catalytic properties

• Published in: Nature communications 2014-07, Vol.5 (1), p.4327, Article 4327
• Main Authors: He, Rong, Wang, You-Cheng, Wang, Xiaoyong, Wang, Zhantong, Liu, Gang, Zhou, Wei, Wen, Longping, Li, Qunxiang, Wang, Xiaoping, Chen, Xiaoyuan, Zeng, Jie, Hou, J. G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 14/63; 639/301/299; 639/301/357/354; 639/638/77/884; Alloys - chemical synthesis; Alloys - therapeutic use; Animals; Breast Neoplasms - therapy; Catalysis; Copper - chemistry; Copper - therapeutic use; Gold - chemistry; Gold - therapeutic use; Hot Temperature - therapeutic use; Humanities and Social Sciences; Mice, Inbred BALB C; multidisciplinary; Nanocrystals; Nanoparticles - chemistry; Nanoparticles - therapeutic use; Phototherapy; Random Allocation; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Xenograft Model Antitumor Assays
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5327

The combination of gold and copper is a good way to pull down the cost of gold and ameliorate the instability of copper. Through shape control, the synergy of these two metals can be better exploited. Here, we report an aqueous phase route to the synthesis of pentacle gold–copper alloy nanocrystals with fivefold twinning, the size of which can be tuned in the range from 45 to 200 nm. The growth is found to start from a decahedral core, followed by protrusion of branches along twinning planes. Pentacle products display strong localized surface plasmon resonance peaks in the near-infrared region. Under irradiation by an 808-nm laser, 70-nm pentacle nanocrystals exhibit a notable photothermal effect to kill 4T1 murine breast tumours established on BALB/c mice. In addition, 70-nm pentacle nanocrystals show better catalytic activity than conventional citrate-coated 5-nm Au nanoparticles towards the reduction of p -nitrophenol to p -aminophenol by sodium borohydride. Control over the size and shape of nanostructures is important for many applications but challenging, especially for bimetallic systems. Here, the authors report the size-controlled synthesis of star-shaped gold–copper nanocrystals and show their applications in catalysis and photothermal therapy.