The morphological transformations of Au particles on SiO were studied by means of real-time high-resolution electron microscopy. The data were analyzed quantitatively in order to extract the relative probabilities of various morphologies and were compared with a probability model so as to understand the role of the various parameters that affected the transformations. The experimental data revealed several interesting new trends. Single crystals predominated over icosahedral multiply twinned particles and decahedral multiply twinned particles, over the observed size regime of 2 to 8nm. The activation energies of the morphologies were also affected by surface stresses and by anisotropy of the surface energies.

N.Doraiswamy, L.D.Marks: Philosophical Magazine B, 1995, 71[3], 291-310