Abstract
Laser-induced incandescence (LII) is a widely used combustion diagnostic for in situ measurements of soot primary particle sizes and volume fractions in flames, exhaust gases, and the atmosphere. Increasingly, however, it is applied to characterize engineered nanomaterials, driven by the increasing industrial relevance of these materials and the fundamental scientific insights that may be obtained from these measurements. This review describes the state of the art as well as open research challenges and new opportunities that arise from LII measurements on non-soot nanoparticles. An overview of the basic LII model, along with statistical techniques for inferring quantities-of-interest and associated uncertainties is provided, with a review of the application of LII to various classes of materials, including elemental particles, oxide and nitride materials, and non-soot carbonaceous materials, and core–shell particles. The paper concludes with a discussion of combined and complementary diagnostics, and an outlook of future research.
Highlights
Gas-phase synthesis of nanoparticles offers the possibility of generating high-purity materials via a continuous flow process
The paper concludes with a discussion about how Laser-induced incandescence (LII) can be complemented with other measurement modalities to reduce the uncertainty in inferred parameters (Sect. 7), as well as a general outlook into this emerging and exciting field
A drawback of gassynthesis routes is that the gas composition influences both the particle size as well as the LII signal decay, which complicates comparison of LII measurements made in different atmospheres, and many synthesis processes work with only a limited range of gases
Summary
Gas-phase synthesis of nanoparticles offers the possibility of generating high-purity materials via a continuous flow process. Applications include electronics, catalysis, batteries, photovoltaics, biological and biomedical applications, gas sensing, among others [2, 3] The functionality of these materials depends strongly on the size and morphology of individual particles, and, in some cases, aggregates and agglomerates [4]. Comparatively little effort has focused on deploying optical diagnostics, including LII, for characterizing inorganic “non-soot” nanoparticles in the gas phase, this situation is rapidly changing, motivated by the unique properties of these materials and the economic importance of their large-scale production. Non-soot nanoparticle targets are frequently elemental materials of known composition, and often have well-defined morphologies, e.g., isolated spherical nanoparticles having a narrow and tunable size distribution. In this respect, they represent ideal targets for LII. The paper concludes with a discussion about how LII can be complemented with other measurement modalities to reduce the uncertainty in inferred parameters (Sect. 7), as well as a general outlook into this emerging and exciting field
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