Fabrication of Fe nanoparticles with sizes ranging from 30 to 170 nm by gas flow sputtering

Abstract

Fe nanoparticles were prepared by gas flow sputtering (GFS), and their sizes and size distributions were investigated as functions of the preparation parameters. The mean diameter of the particles increased with the sputtering pressure and substrate-to-target separation; the size distribution of the particles was well fitted by a log-normal function. By varying the sputtering pressure and substrate-to-target separation, Fe particles with diameters ranging from 30 to 170 nm were obtained. On the other hand, the value of S(D)/E(D), where E(D) and S(D) are the mean diameter and standard deviation of the log-normal particle size distribution, respectively, remained constant at approximately 0.2 and did not vary significantly when the sputtering pressure and substrate-to-target separation were changed, indicating that a narrow size distribution is achieved by GFS.