Design at the nanometre scale of multifunctional materials using supercritical fluid chemical deposition

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Abstract
Recent developments in multifunctional devices show the interest in combining different materials to obtain specific properties. Through supercritical fluid chemical deposition (SFCD), silica spheres, used as a model support, were coated with copper nanoparticles (5-17 nm) with a tuneable amount of coverage (40-80%). The coating process is based on the reduction of metal precursors with hydrogen in a supercritical CO(2)/isopropanol mixture in a temperature range between 100 and 150 °C at 24 MPa. Several parameters were studied such as temperature, residence time or mass ratio of precursor/silica spheres, allowing control of the size of the copper nanoparticles and of the amount of coverage from metal nanoparticles scattered onto the surface to a metal nanoparticle thin film.