Controlled growth of layered silver stearate on 2D and 3D surfaces

Abstract

This investigation confirms that silver stearate consists of an infinite-sheet, two-dimensional, nonmolecular layered structure. Scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and infrared spectroscopy reveal the following: plate-like morphology is identified from the SEM image, XRD peaks can be indexed to the (0k0) reflections of a layered structure, and infrared peaks show that alkyl chains are present in an all-trans conformational state with little or no significant gauche population. Based on these structural characteristics, we demonstrate that silver stearate, a prototype of layered organic-inorganic hybrid material, can be grown not only in a designed two-dimensional pattern but also in three-dimensionally ordered ways by using carboxyl-group terminated nanoparticles as a template.