Dendrimer templated construction of silver nanoparticles

Silver nanoparticles continue to evoke great current interest due to their tremendous potential in designing smart materials for a wide variety of applications. Much emphasis has been placed lately in developing methodologies that could modulate the size and shape of these metal particles. Dendrimers that are monodisperse in nature with a regular and highly branched three-dimensional architecture, provide a useful platform to accomplish this goal. These hyperbranched macromolecules have been widely explored as templates in the construction of silver metal nanoparticles, and this review aims to provide a detailed overview of dendrimer-assisted synthesis of silver nanoparticles. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.