Synthesis of Au-metal sulfide-metal oxide ternary hybrid nanostructures via sls mechanism

In the last decades, various methods were developed to form hybrid nanostructures and multicomponent materials due to their unique properties. These methods enable the synthesis of a wide range of heterostructures but are still constrained by surface chemistry considerations that limit the material combinations, morphologies, and configurations that can be attained. Thus, there is a tremendous interest in developing new synthetic approaches.

In this work, we present a novel approach for the formation of ternary hybrid nanostructures using Au-metal oxide (ZnO, Fe₃O₄, MnO) dimers as catalysts. This approach consists of a combination of two different methods: seeded growth and the solution-liquid-solid (SLS) mechanism. This combined approach allowed us to synthesize ternary nanostructures consisting of Au-SnS-ZnO, Au-CdS-MnO, and Au-CdS-Fe₃O₄ using Au-ZnO, Au-MnO, and Au-Fe3O4, respectively, hybrid nano-catalysts.

The formation mechanism is elaborated by examining the growth progress at different stages of the reaction. This synthetic approach is general and can be expanded to numerous other materials.