Effect of laser energy and ablation time on the formation of aluminum nanoparticles by nanosecond laser ablation of aluminum target in ethanol

Kadhim A Aadim

doi:10.30723/ijp.v12i25.312

Abstract

In this work we study the influence of the laser pulse energy and ablation time on the aluminum nanoparticles productivity during nanosecond laser ablation of bulk aluminum immersed in liquid.Aluminum nanoparticles were synthesized by pulsed laser ablation of Al targets in ethanol for 3-8 minutes using the 1064 nm wavelength of a Nd:YAG laser with energies of 300-500 mJ per pulse.The laser energy was varied between 300 and 500 mJ/pulse, whereas the ablation time was set to 5 minutes. UV-Visible absorption spectra was used for the characterization and comparison of products.

Highlights

Nanoparticles synthesis, nanostructure formation and their characterization are of great interest because of the physics associated with them and are described by the intermediate regime between quantum physics and classical physics[1].The electronic properties of the nano-sized systems change dramatically since the density of states and spatial length scale of electronic motion are reduced with decreasing size
Aluminum nanoparticles were synthesized by laser ablation of a Al target placed on the bottom of a glass vessel filled with a 5 ml of ethanol (99.9 % purity)
Ablation time and laser energy play an important role in determining the ablation efficiency, absorbance peak, and the energy of the synthesized particles

Summary

Introduction

Nanoparticles synthesis, nanostructure formation and their characterization are of great interest because of the physics associated with them and are described by the intermediate regime between quantum physics and classical physics[1]. The latter advantage is due to the fact that nanoparticles are stored in the liquid as a colloidal solution in liquid-phase laser ablation Another feature of liquid-phase laser ablation is the easiness to produce plasmas in liquids since just focusing intense laser beams onto solid-state targets immersed in liquids is sufficient, provided that the liquid is transparent to the laser wavelength. This method has other significant advantages, such as a relatively simple experimental setup, ease of preparation and size control[7,8,9]. Using 1064 nm wavelength of pulsed Nd:YAG laser, the present paper deals with the synthesis of Al nanoparticles by pulsed laser ablation in ethanol and effect of laser energy and ablation time on these nanoparticles

Experimental details

Results and discussion

Conclusions