Single-crystalline, regular-edged gold nanoplates are synthesized through chemical reduction of AuCl4^- by a suitable amount of citrate at room temperature, without additional capping agents or surfactants. The suitable molar ratio of sodium citrate to HAuCl4, low reaction temperature and the presence of natural light are critical factors for the formation of the regularly shaped nanoplates.
Recently bacterial cells have become attractive biological templates for the fabrication of metal nano- structures or nanomaterials due to their inherent small size, various standard geometrical shapes and abundant source. In this paper, nickel-coated bacterial cells (gram-negative bacteria of Escherichia coli) were fabricated via electroless chemical plating. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) characterization results reveal evident morphological difference between bacterial cells before and after deposition with nickel. The bare cells with smooth surface presented transverse outspreading effect at mica surface. Great changes took place in surface roughness for those bacterial cells after metallization. A large number of nickel nanoparticles were observed to be equably distributed at bacterial surface after activation and subsequent metallization. Furthermore, ultra thin section analytic results validated the presence and uniformity of thin nickel coating at bacte- rial surface after metallization.
