Tailoring the local/atomic structure and electronic properties of nanoparticles: from fundamental studies to potential applications in catalysis and biotechnology

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The proposed research falls into the rapidly growing area of nanoscience and nanotechnology and centers around the studies of metal nanoparticles (NPs), the fundamental building blocks of nanotechnology. The past two decades have witnessed a explosive growth of research in metal nanoparticles (NPs), which show promising applications in a variety of areas in nanotechnology such as biosensing, nanoelectronics, drug delivery and catalysis. In order to improve the performance of metal NPs in practical applications, selection of bimetallic and trimetallic NPs with well-tailored atomic structures, such as core-shell, alloy and core-alloyed shell, is often preferred. These multicomponent NPs may combine many desired functionalities associated with each component in the NPs, such as high catalytic reactivity, magnetic anisotropy, biocompatability and so on. In spite of these advantages, it remains an important challenge to synthesize and characterize multicomponent metal NPs with well-tailored atomic structure and electronic properties. Towards this end, the proposed research is intended to improve the ability of precise control of the structure and electronic properties of multi-component metal NPs at atomic level by developing efficient synthetic methodology for the NPs and by providing insights into their structure-property relationship with powerful X-ray spectroscopy techniques. Particular emphasis will be placed in the studies of superparamagnetic NPs containing at least one magnetic metal (e.g. Fe, Co, Ni). These fundamental studies will be carried out in conjunction with the exploration of some innovative applications of the NPs in catalysis and biotechnology.