Abstract
The second harmonic wavelength of a neodymium-doped yttrium-aluminum-garnet (Nd-YAG) laser (λ=532 nm) was used in a pulsed laser ablation technique (PLAL) to synthesize aluminum nanoparticles suspended in white vinegar from an aluminum target. The nanoparticles were characterized by HRTEM and UV-Vis spectrophotometry. They were found to range in size between 2 and 50 nm in diameter, with an average diameter of 12±9 nm. The nanoparticles had a maximum absorption peak at 237 nm and were found to exhibit a core-shell structure with an Al core coated by a thin layer of an amorphous material which could be attributed to amorphous carbon. HRTEM results revealed that the small nanoparticles (<20 nm) had an fcc phase of aluminum crystalline structure, where the larger particles represented alumina (γ-Al2O3) nanoparticles. Such observation suggests that the use of white vinegar as an ablation medium could facilitate the synthesis of aluminum nanoparticles with minimal evidence of the existence of aluminum oxide nanoparticles in the resultant suspension.
Highlights
Aluminum nanoparticles (Al NPs), nowadays, have attracted a great interest due to their significant and diverse applications
Spherical aluminum nanoparticles suspended in white vinegar resulted from the 532 nm Nd:YAG laser ablation of the submersed aluminum target after 15 minutes of exposure
Zooming into the smaller nanoparticles with the HRTEM analysis (Figures 3(a) and 3(b)), the rectilinear distance in the crystal structure of the particles can be seen to be 0.2 nm and 0.23 nm which corresponds to (200) and (111) planes of fcc aluminum, respectively. This is further confirmed by the Selected Area Electron Diffraction (SAED) analysis shown in Figure 3(c) where its plot shows the existence of Al (111), (200), (311), (222), and (400) with the onset of γ-Al2O3 (440) based on the Joint Committee on Powder Diffraction Standard-International Center for Diffraction Data (JCPDS-ICDD) Card nos. 85-1327 for pure Al and 29-0063 for γ-Al2O3
Summary
Aluminum nanoparticles (Al NPs), nowadays, have attracted a great interest due to their significant and diverse applications. In recent years, pulsed laser ablation in liquid (PLAL) has emerged as a promising method for producing pure active metal nanoparticles [5]. PLAL is considered as a simple and low-cost technique that does not require any vacuum apparatus [6] It could provide size-controlled nanoparticles without any chemical contamination [7]. Applying the first harmonic wavelength of a Nd:YAG laser (λ = 1064 nm), irradiated aluminum targets immersed in ethanol, acetone, or ethylene glycol resulted in Al nanoparticles with different diameters ranging between 30 and 100 nm [8, 9]. Likewise, irradiated aluminum targets in dry tetrahydrofuran (with or without the addition of oleic acid) resulted in Al nanoparticles with an average size of 21 nm [14]. To the best of our knowledge, no previous work has used vinegar in the preparation of aluminum nanoparticles using PLAL
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