  A simple method for the fabrication of metal nanoparticles is introduced.
Heating metal-organic crystals in vacuum results in the formation of well
defined metal particles embedded in a carbon matrix. The method is demonstrated
for iron-phthalocyanine. At 500C homogeneously distributed iron nanoparticles
with a reasonably narrow size distribution form by nucleation and ripening.
After this initial phase the formation kinetics changes drastically. The
particles move in the matrix to incorporate material. The "gluttony" phase
shows astonishing similarities with the search for nutrition of living
micro-organisms. Particle formation, ripening and gluttony are followed in-situ
by transmission electron microscopy.
