Morphology-controllable fabrication of ordered platinum nanoshells with reduced symmetry

This paper presents a novel method for fabricating an ordered array of metallic nanoshells with a controllable shape by a combination of a porous polymer template and a nanocrystal-seeded electroless plating technique. The morphology of hollow particles has a strong dependence on the seed-deposition time onto the surfaces of the original colloidal template. Using this method, ordered Pt nanobowls (bowl-shaped shells) and, alternatively, nanocups (cup-shaped shells) are prepared. These materials show some intriguing properties: (i) reduced symmetry of the building blocks; (ii) a well-ordered structure; and (iii) a high ratio of surface area to volume, all of which are useful in many areas such as catalysts, sensors, and photonic crystals.