Tiny acorns that fuse together in pairs to form miniature
peanuts – Japanese researchers have succeeded in producing
peanut-shaped nanoparticles comprised of two different sulfur-
containing substances. The ends of the “peanuts” are made of
palladium sulfide and the center of cobalt sulfide, report
scientists working with Toshiharu Teranishi in the journal
Angewandte Chemie. Unlike “normal-sized” granules, the
structural characteristics – such as shape and size – of
nanoscale inorganic particles have a significant effect on the
physical and chemical properties of these tiny structures.
Therefore, there is great interest in the discovery of processes
for the controlled production of such particles. Things get
especially interesting when the nanoparticles are made of two
different substances to give two different functionalities in
one particle, such as luminescence and magnetism. Previous
synthetic methods resulted in either a random, unordered mixture
or defined core-shell structures in which one substance gro