Self-assembly mechanism of platelike silver mesocrystal

In this letter, two-dimensional monocrystalline silver mesocrystals with about 5–20μm in size and 70nm in thickness were, for the first time, large-scale synthesized within a facile and organic-free replacement reaction system. The growth process and mechanism of silver mesoscopic plates are discussed in detail. An oriented nucleation and self-assembly coarsening process were suggested to describe the formation of monocrystalline silver mesocrystals. The kinetically dominated route reported here can be extended to other metals to synthesize the mesoscopic morphology.