Amanda E. Henkes, R. Schaak
Jul 21, 2007
Citations
1
Influential Citations
176
Citations
Quality indicators
Journal
Chemistry of Materials
Abstract
Metal phosphides can have important properties such as superconductivity, magnetoresistance, magnetocaloric behavior, catalytic activity, and lithium intercalation capacity, which make them useful for a variety of technological applications. Bulk metal phosphides usually require high temperatures and harsh reaction conditions to form, and metal phosphide nanocrystals can also be challenging to synthesize. Here we elaborate on a recently developed alternative approach for synthesizing metal phosphides, which involves the solution-mediated reaction of pre-formed metals with trioctylphosphine (TOP) at temperatures below 370 °C. This chemical conversion strategy is shown to be general and highly versatile, successfully forming a wide range of transition-metal and post-transition-metal phosphides using a range of both bulk and nanoscale metals as precursors. Metal nanocrystals, bulk powders, foils, wires, thin films, lithographically patterned substrates, and supported nanocrystals can all be converted to meta...