The use of silver within the electronic industry is widespread and a significant and growing source of demand.

Of all the elements, silver is the best conductor of electricity and is used as a comparative measure for the conductivity of all other metals. As such it is applied to all situations where the highest degree of conductivity is required. Contacts, circuit breakers, switches and fuses are a few of more than dozens of electrical components using silver that are manufactured in the electrical industry. Any motor, appliance or device needing electric current today will have silver points of contact, wiring or circuit boards.
Atomic weight: Melting point: Boiling point: Electrons: Protons: Neutrons in most abundant isotope: Electron shells: Electron configuration: Density @ 20oC: 107.868 961.95 oC, 1235.1 K 2155 oC, 2428 K 47 47 60 2,8,18,18,1 [Kr] 4d10 5s1 10.5 g/cm3

 They have unique optical, electrical, and thermal properties and are being incorporated into products that range from photovoltaics to biological and chemical sensors. Examples include conductive inks, pastes and fillers which utilize silver nanoparticles for their high electrical conductivity, stability, and low sintering temperatures. Additional applications include molecular diagnostics and photonic devices, which take advantage of the novel optical properties of these nanomaterials. An increasingly common application is the use of silver nanoparticles for keyboards and biomedical devices now contain silver nanoparticles.

 a) TEM image of the sample prepared by dispersing the as-received powder in deionized water by ultra-sonication. The agglomeration of particles inside the foamy carbon matrix is observed. b) TEM image of nanoparticles outside of the carbon matrix. The broad distribution of shapes can be observed.

c)->f) TEM images of nanoparticles with different morphologies. c) Icosahedral. d) Decahedral. e) Elongated. f) Octahedral. g) High Resolution TEM image of the foamy carbon matrix.

There is growing interest in utilizing the optical properties of silver nanoparticles as the functional component in various products and sensors. Silver nanoparticles are extraordinarily efficient at absorbing and scattering light and, unlike many dyes and pigments, have a color that depends upon the size and the shape of the particle. The strong interaction of the silver nanoparticles with light occurs because the conduction electrons on the metal surface undergo a collective oscillation when excited by light at specific wavelengths . In fact, silver nanoparticles can have effective extinction cross sections up to ten times larger than their physical cross section. The strong scattering cross section allows for sub 100 nm nanoparticles to be easily visualized with a conventional microscope.

 When 60 nm silver nanoparticles are illuminated with white light they appear as bright blue point source scatterers under a dark field microscope. The bright blue color is due to an SPR that is peaked at a 450 nm wavelength. A unique property of spherical silver nanoparticles is that this SPR peak wavelength can be tuned from 400 nm (violet light) to 530 nm (green light) by changing the particle size and the local refractive index near the particle surface. Even larger shifts of the SPR peak wavelength out into the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum can be achieved by producing silver nanoparticles with rod or plate shapes.

 In addition to the particle size and size distribution, phase composition and crystallinity of the synthesized silver particles were investigated by using an Xray diffractometer. The phase analysis was conducted on the silver particles.The X-ray diffraction patterns correspond to silver with a crystalline face centeredcubic (fcc) structure as shown above. The prepared particles were determined to be pure Ag.

 Typically, during titration of the silver nitrate solution,ascorbic acid converts to the oxide form through a radical reaction and reduce the silver ion to the metallic form. Effect of capping agent on the particles size under ultrasonic radiation