Possible morphologies of Au Nanoparticles – Twinned truncated octahedron

Compare the idealised polyhedron structure with the structures calculated for various numbers of gold atoms by Density Functional Theory.

This shape is a twinned structure of the truncated octahedron. Because of the complicated construction, this kind of particles cannot be found in small size fcc structures. Instead, hexagonal close-packed fits.

These hypothetical structures are presented for comparison.