Could you explain the significance of your article to the non-specialist? 

Bimetallic nanoparticles constitute a distinct class of nanostructured materials with rich structural behaviour and tuneable chemical and physical properties. Our work provides a means to establish and rationalise structure-property correlations.

What has motivated you to conduct this work?

The importance of work and the availability of experimental techniques, coupled with a good team of experienced researchers working across the fields of synthesis, characterisation and modelling/theory.

Where do you see this work developing in the future?

Combining experiment and theory to study: dynamical structural change, structural stability, interfacial diffusion, correlations between structure (geometric and chemical ordering) and properties, understanding of underlying mechanisms, kinetics and thermodynamics.

Are there any particular challenges facing future research in this area? 

. Mono-dispersed particle sizes and control of structures and chemical ordering. 

. Structural and elemental characterization with atomic resolution and atomic sensitivity 

. Bridging the 'pressure' gap, which is important if they are going to be used as real catalysts. 

. Applying high quality computational methods (e.g. Density Functional Theory) to large bimetallic nanoparticles of experimental interest, with many hundreds or even thousands of atoms.