Gold/Iron Oxide Core/Hollow‐Shell Nanoparticles

Assembling several materials into a single nanoparticle (NP) is an attractive way to design systems possessing diverse physical and chemical properties. In multicomponent systems, one can expect novel and unique properties that originate from collective interactions between the constituents. Multicomponent nanoparticles exhibit distinct optical, catalytic, and photocatalytic properties. To date, several morphologies of multicomponent nanoparticles have been reported. The general strategy to synthesize multicomponent materials is first to prepare nanoparticles of one material, and then use them as nucleation seeds to deposit the other components. Significant progress has been made in the synthesis of semiconductor nanoparticles with epitaxial shells, while the synthesis of nanoparticles that combine components with very different lattice parameters still faces many challenges. To date, a number of heterostructures have been successfully synthesized through seed-mediated approaches. However, only a few hybrid nanoparticles show a reasonable level of control over particle size distribution and homogeneity in composition. It was recently shown that CoPt3/Au dumbbells, [2] PbSe/Aux heterostructures, Au/Fe3O4 dumbbells and solid core/shell structures, [5] anisotropic Fe2O3 nanoparticles decorated with a polycrystalline Au shell, and Pt/CoO core/hollow-shell nanoparticles can be obtained at the nanoscale. Iron oxide based