Bending Contours in Silver Nanoprisms

A detailed electron microscopy analysis is reported on the structure of silver nanoprisms synthesized by controlled photoinduced aggregation of Ag nanoparticles. Bending of the nanoprism (111) face is directly revealed in the presence of fringes in both bright and dark field TEM images, which are unequivocally assigned to bending contours. Such contours can be individually imaged through shifting of the objective aperture and selectively allowing transmission of the corresponding diffraction spot. The assignment of a bent structure is supported by images of the lateral sides of the prisms, and high-resolution images where apparent changes in the lattice constant are observed.