Study of nanoobjects of different nature using submillimeter laser ablation

Abstract

This paper reviews the experimental work conducted at the physicochemical workstation of the Novosibirsk free electron laser (FEL) since 2005 on developing methods for studying the fractional composition of nanoobjects of different nature. It has been found that the submillimeter radiation of the FEL leads to soft ablation of biological macromolecules. Furthermore, the molecules are transferred to the aerosol phase separately, each type of molecules forms its own fraction of aerosol nanoparticles without destruction and denaturation, and their sizes correlate with molecular weight. It is suggested that submillimeter laser ablation can be used to determine the sizes of nanoobjects of different origin. The paper discusses the results of experiments with mineral clusters, nanopowders, synthetic and biological polymers carried out using traditional methods of investigation of the fractional composition of nanoscale materials (atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, and x-ray diffractometry) and using the new method—the analysis of the aerosol products of submillimeter laser ablation. It is shown that submillimeter laser ablation with the subsequent registration of aerosol products by modern equipment is a versatile, simple, fast, and accurate method which can complement the above-mentioned methods.