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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