https://doi.org/10.1051/epjap/2022220027
Regular Article
Out-of-equilibrium supported Pt-Co core-shell nanoparticles stabilized by kinetic trapping at room temperature★
1
Interfaces, Confinement, Matériaux et Nanostructures, ICMN, Université d’Orléans, CNRS,
1B, rue de la Férollerie,
45071
Orléans Cedex, France
2
Institut Néel, CNRS, Université Joseph Fourier,
BP 166,
38042
Grenoble Cedex 9, France
3
Institut des Nanotechnologies de Lyon, CNRS, Ecole Centrale de Lyon,
36 avenue Guy de Collongue,
69134
Ecully, France
4
Conditions Extremes et Matériaux: Hautes Temperatures et Irradiations, CEMHTI, CNRS,
45071
Orleans Cedex, France
a Present address: Département de Physique, Faculté des Sciences et des Sciences Appliquées, Université de Bouira, 10000, Algérie
* e-mail: pascal.andreazza@univ-orleans.fr
Received:
6
February
2022
Received in final form:
18
April
2022
Accepted:
25
April
2022
Published online: 1 September 2022
The chemical stability of supported CoPt nanoparticles in out-of-equilibrium core-shell configurations was investigated mainly by anomalous grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering (AGISAXS) in association with combined transmission electron microscopy and X-ray absorption spectroscopy. CoPt nanoparticles were prepared at room temperature by ultrahigh vacuum atom beam deposition using two different routes: simultaneous deposition of the two metals (CoPt) or sequential deposition. In this last case, Co deposition on a Pt-core (Pt@Co) and the reverse configuration (Co@Pt) are explored. In the Pt@Co case, our experimental analysis of 2.5 nm particles shows the stability of a Pt rich-core (80% Pt) surrounded by a two-monolayers-thick Co shell. In the reverse case, the core-shell structure is also stabilized, while the codeposited sample leads to an alloyed structure. These results suggest that the growth kinetics can trap the thermodynamically non-favorable core-shell structure even for this system which has a high alloying tendency. Besides the lack of atom mobility at room temperature, this stabilization can also be associated with core strain effects. Post thermal treatment of core-shell samples induces a structural transition from the core-shell configuration to the equilibrium alloyed configuration. This study demonstrates that the element-selective scattering technique, AGISAXS is highly efficient for the extraction of chemical segregation information from multi-component supported nanoparticles, such as core-shell structures, up to ultimate small sizes.
Supplementary material is available in electronic form at https://www.epjap.org/10.1051/epjap/2022220027
© H. Khelfane et al., Published by EDP Sciences, 2022
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.