Synthesis of silver nanowires in the presence of Ag seeds and PVP capping agent by polyol method

Abstract

Ag nanowires have been synthesized using oil-bath method by adding Ag seeds and PVP as an adsorption agent. It was demonstrated that the initial pre-synthesized Ag seeds and the role of PVP are crucial for Ag nanowires to grow preferentially. Moreover, the experimental results showed that their morphologies and sizes can be tailored by adjusting the reaction conditions such as reaction temperature, injection mode and PVP to AgNO3 molar ratio under oil bath condition. SEM, TEM and electron diffraction and also XRD were employed to analyse the as-synthesized Ag nanoparticles, giving a clear evident for dimension of nanostructures especially Ag nanowires, uniformity in diameter of Ag nanowires, straightness of the wires and their crystalline structures whose phase purity is extremely high. The formation mechanism of the Ag nanowires produced is also proposed.