Maedehsadat Mousavi, UNSW
This project highlights the potential of liquid metals (LMs) for creating nanomaterials that can be utilized in various fields such as sensing, catalysis, and biotechnologies due to liquid metals’ unique characteristics, particularly the dynamics of their interfaces. LM interfaces are electrically conductive, atomically smooth, and chemically active, making them ideal for synthesizing advanced products and niche thin films. Introducing metal-based cations to the LM’s interfaces produces highly crystalline nanostructures due to the presence of an autogenous interfacial potential on gallium-based LMs.
In this study, we utilize the interfaces of Ga-based liquid alloys to synthesize stoichiometric and non-stoichiometric silver telluride and copper telluride, which are promising semiconductors with numerous applications. Our direct synthesis protocol using Ga-based LMs as reaction media fine-tunes the interfacial reduction reactions of metallic cations and produces unique interfacial growth with engineered stoichiometries and morphologies.
The size, shape, and crystal phase of silver telluride and copper telluride compounds can be controlled by adjusting the surrounding Ga-based LM pH and molar ratio of precursor ions. The resulting metal telluride nanomaterials are tested for electrochemical sensing, showing high sensitivities and good performance. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential of Ga-based LMs as a universal platform for the direct synthesis of nanomaterials with controllable properties and applications in various fields.
About the presenter
Maedehsadat Mousavi is a PhD candidate in the School of Chemical Engineering at UNSW, working with Prof Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh to investigate liquid metal-assisted synthesis and applications of topological insulators. Maedehsadat’s research falls within FLEET’s Enabling technology B: nano-device fabrication.