A simple process for the preparation of copper (I) oxide nanoparticles by a thermal decomposition process with borane tert-butylamine complex.

To control the optical properties of Cu2O for a variety of application, we synthesized Cu2O in nanoscale without other treatments. Cu2O nanoparticles with an average size of 2.7 nm (sigma < or = 3.7%) were successfully synthesized in this study via a modified thermal decomposition process. Copper (II) acetylacetonate was used as a precursor, and oleylamine was used as a solvent, a surfactant and a reducing agent. The oleylamine-mediated synthesis allowed for the preparation of Cu2O nanoparticles with a narrower size distribution, and the nanoparticles were synthesized in the presence of a borane tert-butylamine (BTB) complex, where BTB was a strong co-reducing agent together with oleylamine. UV-vis spectroscopy analysis suggest that band gap energy of these Cu2O particles is enlarged from 2.1 eV in the bulk to 3.1 eV in the 2.7-nm nanoparticles, which is larger than most other reported value of Cu2O nanoparticles. Therefore, these nanoparticles could be used as a transparent material because of transformed optical property.