Synthesis of silver nanocubes with controlled size using water-soluble poly(amic acid) salt as the intermediate via a novel ion-exchange self-assembly technique.

Here, we report for the first time on the successful fabrication of monodispersed silver nanocubes with regular shape and controlled size in the solid phase via a novel ion-exchange self-assembly technique by using water-soluble poly(amic acid) salt as the intermediate and silver nitrate as the metal precursor. By simply altering the annealing times at high temperature, the size of the silver nanocubes could be finely tuned in the range of 90-160 nm in the present case. Further attempts with different metal salts show that the present method is also feasible for other metal species and might be universal.