Preparation of plate-like copper nitride nanoparticles from a fatty acid copper(II) salt and detailed observations by high resolution transmission electron microscopy and high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy

• The shape of copper nitride was controlled by using a fatty acid copper salt as a starting reagent.
• We determined the growth direction of the crystal by using XRD and TEM.
• Fatty acid inhibited the crystal growth to (110) and (111) direction.
• We observed Cu atomic columns which are on different atomic sites in the Cu3N crystal.

We recently developed a new method to prepare copper nitride nanoparticles without the use of high pressure or high temperature. In this study, we used the method to prepare plate-like copper nitride nanoparticles from copper(II) decanoate as a precursor. XRD and HR-TEM analyses revealed that the (100) plane grew selectively under the reaction conditions. HAADF-STEM clearly showed atomic columns of copper at different sites in the copper nitride crystal.

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