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

Ag2S 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.