Influence of the laser light absorption by the colloid on the properties of silver nanoparticles produced by laser ablation in stirred and stationary liquid

Abstract

Silver nanoparticles were produced by nanosecond pulsed-laser ablation at 1064 nm of Ag in pure water. These experiments were performed using an alternative ablation cell design where a cylindrical shaped Ag target was horizontally irradiated, while the liquid was stirred by a stir rod coaxially arranged to the target. The repeatability of the generated colloids properties (extinction and size distribution) is assessed by statistical tools. The colloids properties prepared under stationary liquid are found to be unpredictable, while they are highly repeatable at high stirring speed. At the same time, electronic microscopy examinations of the irradiated Ag targets revealed that the width of the laser-machined grooves exponentially decays in stationary liquid and almost linearly under high stirring speed as the ablation proceeds. In the latter case, the decay rate was found to be constant from one experiment to the other, while it was not repeatable stationary liquid. We show that the decay of the groove width is due to an attenuation of the laser energy reaching the target surface due to the formation of a more or less dense NPs layer in front of the target as the ablation proceeds. Using the ablation time-dependence of the groove width, we can quantify the attenuation factor of the laser energy with exposure time. Finally, the relationship between the laser energy attenuation, stirring speed, and repeatability of the colloids properties is interpreted and discussed in terms of mass transfer.