Rapid thermal synthesis of silver nanoprisms with chemically tailorable thickness

A thermal synthetic route that yields silver nanoprisms with a unimodal size distribution and with modest control over edge length was presented. It was found that the concentration of sodium borohydride had a dramatic effect on the degree of conversion of silver nanoparticles to nanoprisms. The increased particle thickness, in combination with the modest decrease in the edge length, accounted for the large differences in the UV-vis spectra of the nanoprism colloids. Analysis shows that poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) does not play a shape-directed role in the thermal synthetic process but rather prevents nanoprism aggregation.