Copper nanocubes and nanostructured cuprous oxide prepared by surfactant-assisted electrochemical deposition

An interesting shape evolution between Cu crystals and Cu2O crystals was realized by electrodeposition and copper nanocubes (Cu NCs) with a size of 150–1000 nm were successfully fabricated. Cyclic voltammogram (CV), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectrum (EDS), UV/vis/NIR spectrophotometry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) were employed to characterize the samples. The important parameters (including reaction temperature, pH and reaction time) have been investigated in detail. It has been revealed that the pH value has a great influence on the composition of deposited films and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as an adsorbate not only controls crystal morphology, but also generates self-assembly lines of Cu NCs via van der Waals interaction. On the basis of the combination of interfacial dynamics and crystallography, the possible formation mechanism for the products with various architectures is presented.