Ag–Au alloy nanoparticles prepared by electro-exploding wire technique

Homogenous Ag–Au alloy nanoparticles having an average size of 12 ± 2 nm were successfully prepared by the exploding wire technique comprising of a wire–plate system and using 12 V batteries. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy data reveal the formation of alloy nanoparticles with Ag80-Au20 composition, which agrees with the absorption data, obtained using UV-Visible spectroscopy. XPS also reveals a thin metal-oxide shell on the metallic alloy core. These alloy nanoparticles show visible fluorescence emission that was compared with the observed fluorescence from pure Ag nanoparticles. A mechanism for the observed fluorescence is also provided.