Sizing highly-ordered buckyball-shaped aggregates of colloidal nanoparticles by light extinction spectroscopy
Résumé
We produced self-assembled, densely-packed and highly-ordered aggregates of silica nanoparticles arranged in a rather regular hexagonal-pentagonal surface lattice. To investigate the formation of these aggregates, produced by means of a spray drying method, we developed a light extinction setup and all related models. It is shown that with a geodesic dome model, to describe their morphology, and a T-matrix method to calculate their extinction cross sections, the size distribution and concentration of these flowing aggregates may be recovered from the inversion of transmission spectra. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.