Fabrication and characterization of silver-tin dioxide core-shell structured nanocomposite particles

Core-shell structure nanoparticles with silver core and tin dioxide shell were synthesized via a facile soft-chemical process. Optical absorption spectra of tin dioxide deposited silver core nanoparticles, obtained by UV-Visible spectroscopy, showed distinct shifts, both in peak position and its intensity, compared with bare silver nanoparticles, which indicated that silver-tin dioxide core-shell nanoparticles appeared to be formed. The core-shell structure formation was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). XRD pattern showed distinct major peaks corresponding to cubic silver and minor peaks due to tetragonal tin dioxide phases. TEM results, from which we could estimate the nanoparticles size as well as their shell thickness, demonstrated that thin tin dioxide shells encapsulated the silver core particles.