Engineered inorganic core/shell nanoparticles

Patrice Mélinon (1, 2) , Sylvie Begin-Colin (2, 3) , Jean-Luc Duvail (2, 4) , Fabienne Gauffre (2, 5) , Nathalie Herlin-Boime (2, 6, 7) , Gilles Ledoux (1, 2) , Jérôme Plain (2, 8) , Peter Reiss (2, 9) , Fabien Silly (2, 10) , Bénédicte Warot-Fonrose (2, 11)

1 ILM - Institut Lumière Matière [Villeurbanne]
2 OMNT - UMS 2920 - Observatoire des Micro et Nano Technologies
3 IPCMS - Institut de Physique et Chimie des Matériaux de Strasbourg
4 IMN - Institut des Matériaux Jean Rouxel
5 ISCR - Institut des Sciences Chimiques de Rennes
6 LFP - URA 2453 - Laboratoire Francis PERRIN
7 LEDNA - Laboratoire Edifices Nanométriques
8 LNIO - Laboratoire de Nanotechnologie et d'Instrumentation Optique
9 SPRAM - UMR 5819 - Structures et propriétés d'architectures moléculaire
10 SPEC - UMR3680 - Service de physique de l'état condensé
11 CEMES - Centre d'élaboration de matériaux et d'études structurales

It has been for a long time recognized that nanoparticles are of great scientific interest as they are effectively a bridge between bulk materials and atomic structures. At first, size effects occurring in single elements have been studied. More recently, progress in chemical and physical synthesis routes permitted the preparation of more complex structures. Such structures take advantages of new adjustable parameters including stoichiometry, chemical ordering, shape and segregation opening new fields with tailored materials for biology, mechanics, optics magnetism, chemistry catalysis, solar cells and microelectronics. Among them, core/shell structures are a particular class of nanoparticles made with an inorganic core and one or several inorganic shell layer(s). In earlier work, the shell was merely used as a protective coating for the core. More recently, it has been shown that it is possible to tune the physical properties in a larger range than that of each material taken separately. The goal of the present review is to discuss the basic properties of the different types of core/shell nanoparticles including a large variety of heterostructures. We restrict ourselves on all inorganic (on inorganic/inorganic) core/shell structures. In the light of recent developments, the applications of inorganic core/shell particles are found in many fields including biology, chemistry, physics and engineering. In addition to a representative overview of the properties, general concepts based on solid state physics are considered for material selection and for identifying criteria linking the core/shell structure and its resulting properties. Chemical and physical routes for the synthesis and specific methods for the study of core/shell nanoparticle are briefly discussed.

Mots clés: Nanoparticle; Core-shell; Synthesis; Plasmonics

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Patrice Mélinon, Sylvie Begin-Colin, Jean-Luc Duvail, Fabienne Gauffre, Nathalie Herlin-Boime, et al.. Engineered inorganic core/shell nanoparticles. Physics Reports, 2014, 543 (3), pp.163 - 197. ⟨10.1016/j.physrep.2014.05.003⟩. ⟨hal-01072378⟩