STUDY OF SILVER AND COPPER NANOPARTICLES BY ELECTRON AND ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY

Abstract

Electron and atomic force microscopy was used to study silver nanosuspensions in edible glycerin (50 mg/l) and mixtures of silver (85 mg/l) and copper (25 mg/l) nanosuspensions and silver and copper nanoparticles directly deposited onto a silicon substrate by ion plasma sputtering in vacuum at cathode voltages of 1000 and 1600 V. A colloidal silver sample (12 mg/l) of the NSP Company (Nature’s Sunshine Products) was studied for comparison. Samples from different batches of silver and silver–copper nanosuspensions consist of independent monocrystalline particles and their aggregates, and samples of NSP colloidal silver mainly consist of individual particles. It is shown that the characteristic diameter of particles obtained directly in the sputtering process at different cathode voltages depends on energy transfer: at higher cathode voltages, the size of nanoparticles increases, but no substructure is manifest in the coarse particles.