Silver and silver oxide nanoparticles: Synthesis and characterization by thermal decomposition

•Pure silver oxide and silver nanoparticles were synthesized through a free solvent method.•[Ag(HSal)] as copper precursor was used to fabricate Ag2O and Ag nanoparticles.•Pure cubic Ag and hexagonal Ag2O nanoparticles were synthesized after annealing at 400 °C for 3 h in an Ar gas and in an air, respectively.•Ag2O and Ag nanoparticles were characterized by SEM, XRD, FT-IR, Pl, and EDS.

In this work, solid-state thermal decomposition route was applied for synthesis of Ag and Ag2O nanoparticles of new precursor [Ag(Hsal)]. The XRD results showed that pure cubic Ag and hexagonal Ag2O could be obtained after annealing at 400 °C for 3 h in an Ar gas and in an air, respectively. To the best of author׳s knowledge, it is the first time that [Ag(Hsal)] complex is used as silver source for the synthesis of Ag2O and Ag nanoparticles. Photoluminescence (Pl) was used to study the optical properties of Ag and Ag2O nanoparticles.