Rapid synthesis of Ag2S hollow nanospheres at ambient temperature: Studies on preparation, characterization and optical properties

Ag 2 S hollow nanospheres were synthesized by reaction between silver dodecanoate and thiourea in the presence of polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) at ambient temperature within 30 min. Characterization studies by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that the prepared product had a monoclinic structure and was composed of thin shell enwrapped hollow nanospheres. Their large band gap energy of 3.67 eV, remarkable blue shifts both in the ultraviolet-visible (UV–vis) absorption spectrum and the photoluminescence (PL) emission peak could be well explained by the thin shell caused quantum confinement effects.