Inter-American Collaboration in Materials Research on the Atomic Resolution Structure Determination of Novel Nanomaterials - CIAM

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The NSERC CIAM project will enable the international team, consisting of the groups of: Stefan Kycia from Canada, Daniela Zanchet from Brazil, and Felix Requejo from Argentina, to develop novel nanoparticles and solve their structure in greater detail. Synthesis of metallic and bimetallic nanoparticles, such as Ag, Ni, Pt, Pt/Pd, and more complex systems, such as TiO2 or ZrO2 capped Au nanoparticles will be the targets of this proposed collaboration and will take advantage of rapid feedback by high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), followed by a high resolution, detailed structure determination obtained by Extended X-Ray Absorption Fine Structure Spectroscopy (EXAFS) and High Energy X-Ray Scattering, High-Resolution Radial Distribution Function (HR-RDF) measurements. Complementary information about electronic structure will be obtained by X-Ray Absorption Near Edge Structure Spectroscopy (XANES). The structure results will be interpreted with the aid of computer simulations. There is significant overlap of interest and expertise on the science and technology aspects of nanoparticles production and characterization by the three PIs; till now, however, each group has approached this scientific problem from its respective point of view. Zanchet has been working on nanoparticles from the crystal growth standpoint and HRTEM, Kycia has worked on a variety of x-ray diffraction aspects of nanostructures, has performed pioneering work on the development of HR-RDF and has been recently making progress with molecular dynamics modeling of nanoparticles. Requejo has been working on core/shell nanoparticle synthesis and their characterization by x-ray absorption techniques (EXAFS and XANES). The present proposal should serve as a bridge to establish a collaboration to develop and characterize nanoparticle systems that are specifically tailored for catalysis and quantum information applications.