Photo-chemical production of gold nanoparticles in monolithic porous silica by using a novel excimer ultraviolet source

An effective photo-chemical approach induced by a new excimer ultraviolet (UV) source is developed to prepare fixed-size gold nanoparticles in porous silica monoliths. The samples were characterized by optical absorption, HRTEM and N2 sorption isotherm. It is found that around 6 nm gold nanoparticles with narrow size distribution are formed via treatment with the high intensity photo-irradiation for a short period of time.