Real-time TEM and kinetic Monte Carlo studies of the coalescence of decahedral gold nanoparticles.

We report on a real-time in situ TEM study of the coalescence of individual pairs of decahedral gold nanoparticles, which have been synthesized in solution. We observe the rate of growth of the neck that joins two particles during coalescence and compare this to classical continuum theory and to atomistic kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. We find good agreement between the observations and the simulations but not with the classical continuum model. This disagreement is attributed to the faceted nature of the particles.