He-ion induced structural transformation of supported Ag nanoparticles

Over the past few decades, the use of nanostructures for the miniaturization of electrical components, creating new tools for medical diagnosis or even in the fields of pharmacology and cosmetics has become quite indispensable and industrially backed. Nanoparticles (NPs), in particular, are situated between the molecular level and bulk matter size. This size range gave rise to a wide variety of physical phenomena that are still not quite yet understood. In fact, for nanoparticles, the number of atoms present at the surface of these particles is very high and depending on the size of the particles, the percentage of surface atoms can reach higher quantities than its core ones. In addition, due to having a finite number of atoms, adding or removing an atom can have a huge impact on the different properties of these nanoparticles.