Laser synthesis and processing of nanomaterials can provide desired products with precisely controlled properties, including size, composition, morphology, etc. One promising technique for synthesizing surfactant free particles in a single reaction step is pulsed laser ablation in liquids (PLAL). Irradiation of a target by a laser beam forms a plasma comprised of elements from the target and surrounding liquid, which is rapidly cooled to form nanoparticles. Specifically, PLAL has recently been applied to the synthesis of catalysts. These catalysts have shown superior performance to those prepared by wet chemical routes. While understanding the formation process of nanoparticles is a key issue for PLAL, the fine tuning of nanoparticle composition has remained crucial to catalyst synthesis. Our study emphasizes the critical effects of solution components on nanoparticle formation. Nanoparticles were synthesized in several characteristic solvents that have distinctive fragmentation features. Furthermore, soluble metal cations are included to investigate the potential for synthesizing composite nanoparticles. The structure and composition of products were studied by X-ray diffraction and photoelectron spectroscopy. Our results suggest that the apparent fragmentation process of solvent molecules is more important than the elemental composition, which provides insight on nanoparticle formation during plasma cooling. We also found that immiscible elements can still interact with each other under the extreme conditions in the plasma. These findings may provide guidelines for the design and laser synthesis of nanomaterials with multi-components, which meet the requirement of practical applications.

Solvent effects on multicomponent nanoparticles synthesized by pulsed laser ablation

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.