Owing to their unique permeable, hollow shell
structures with inner, movable cores, yolk-shell nanocrystals are
suitable for a wide variety of applications. Yolk-shell
nanocrystals consisting of a gold core with various semiconductor
shells have been developed by Tokyo Tech researchers, using a novel
sequential ion-exchange process. These metal-semiconductor
yolk-shell nanocrystals can serve as highly effective
photocatalysts for many applications.