Morphology-controllable fabrication of ordered platinum nanoshells with reduced symmetry.

This paper presents a novel method for fabricating an ordered array of metallic nanoshells with a controllable shape by a combination of a porous polymer template and a nanocrystal-seeded electroless plating technique. The morphology of hollow particles has a strong dependence on the seed-deposition time onto the surfaces of the original colloidal template. Using this method, ordered Pt nanobowls (bowl-shaped shells) and, alternatively, nanocups (cup-shaped shells) are prepared.