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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2008 Aug 8.
Published in final edited form as: Nano Lett. 2007 May 10;7(6):1764–1769. doi: 10.1021/nl070838l

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Schematic illustrating the formation of nanocage made of a Au/Ag alloy and then cubic nanoframe of pure Au by selectively removing the Ag atoms from a Au/Ag alloy nanobox with an aqueous etchant based on Fe(NO3)3 or NH4OH. The nanobox is, in turn, prepared using the galvanic replacement reaction between the Ag nanocube and an aqueous solution of HAuCl4 (step 1). When silver is dealloyed using Fe(NO3)3 or NH4OH, the nanobox first evolves into a porous nanocage (step 2). As more etchant is added, the silver can be completely removed to generate a cubic nanoframe (step 3). The drawing in the lower panel corresponds to the cross-section indicated in the upper panel for the nanocube.