Unique polyhedral 26-facet CuS hollow architectures decorated with nanotwinned, mesostructural and single crystalline shells

Novel polyhedral 26-facet CuS microcages decorated with amazingly unique crystalline structures as building blocks were successfully synthesized via a facile sacrificial Cu2O templates solution route. Each of the polyhedral 26-facet CuS microcages has a composition of three pairs of square mesostructural shells, four pairs of nanotwinned triangular shells, and six pairs of rectangular single crystalline shells. Structural and morphological evolutions were investigated by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. The selective synthesis of the three different types of building blocks can be attributed to the intrinsic difference of the crystallographic structures of {110}, {100} and {111} facets of Cu2O crystals, which is of great significance in the “bottom-up” assembly of unusual hollow ordering superstructures.