Localization effects on the structural properties of noble metal nanoparticles

Abstract

We studied the behavior with temperature of the structural parameters of different gold nanoparticles and of their macrocrystalline counterpart (gold foil) by means of EXAFS spectroscopy using synchrotron radiation. The main developments of the work of this thesis concern the possibility to perform temperature dependent XAS experiments on other Au-nanoparticle samples having a narrower size distribution than those studied in this work in order to mask effects to thermal behavior, connected to the dispersion in size.