On the structural origin of the catalytic properties of inherently strained ultrasmall decahedral gold nanoparticles.

A new mechanism for reactivity of multiply twinned gold nanoparticles resulting from their inherently strained structure provides a further explanation of the surprising catalytic activity of small gold nanoparticles. Atomic defect structural studies of surface strains and quantitative analysis of atomic column displacements in the decahedral structure observed by aberration corrected transmission electron microscopy reveal an average expansion of surface nearest neighbor distances of 5.6%, with many strained by more than 10%.