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Tuesday, 16th January 2007 (5027 views)

Further steps have been made to understand the role gold nanostructures can play in medical applications, after scientists at the Centre for Computational Materials Science (CCMS) in the US have produced engaging results.

Experts at the centre, which is located at the Georgia Institute of Technology, have found that they can identify the "size-dependent evolution of structural and electronic structural motifs of gold nanoclusters" ranging in size from 11 to 24 atoms.

Their key step means that the scientists are closer to discovering how the gold performs and reacts under certain conditions. The team predicted that negatively charged gold nanoclusters, up to 13 atoms in size, "would exhibit two-dimensional, flat structures".

This is unique to gold, but the scientists wanted to know what happened after the nanoclusters were charged over 13 atoms, when they became three-dimensional.

Results showed that the gold nanoclusters took on various unexpected shapes when they contained larger amounts of atoms, allowing the team better insight into the complex nature of the gold particles.

Uzi Landman, director of the CCMS, said: "These results assist us not only in determining the structures of the clusters, but also provide insight into the factors that underlie their self-assembly."

The team's work will help the future of gold nanoparticle research, which can be utilised in a growing range of scientific areas including fuel cells and cancer research.

 

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