Mechanism of the formation of metal nanoclusters during pulsed laser deposition

Size-controllable synthesis of Bi/Bi2O3heterojunction nanoparticles using pulsed Nd:YAG laser deposition and metal–semiconductor-heterojunction-assisted photoluminescence

“…23,24 The high-energy PLD technique is used to synthesize high melting-point materials, including ceramics and oxides, [25][26][27] while the low-energy PLD method is exploited for the preparation of low melting-point materials, such as post-transition metals. 23,24,[28][29][30] The synthesis of the Bi/Bi 2 O 3 heterojunction nanoparticles included two processes. First, the Bi nanoparticles were grown on the Si substrates at various substrate temperatures of 100, 125, 150, 175, 200, 225, and 250 °C, respectively.…”

Ni nanocrystals on HOPG(0001): A scanning tunnelling microscope study

“…This makes clusters also suitable for fundamental studies of the crossover between the characteristics of single atoms and bulk properties [7–8]. Various methods are employed for growing metallic clusters on surfaces such as ion sputtering [9], pulsed laser deposition [10], electro deposition [11–13], vapor deposition [14], aerosol deposition [15], material transfer of an STM tip [16], etc. For the formation of nanoparticles a weak interaction of the metal with the substrate is favourable [17].…”

Expansion of an ablation plume in a buffer gas and cluster growth

“…When clusters are the constituents of a nanostructured solid the number of atoms per cluster, ranging from a few to several tens of thousands atoms causes strong variations of the surface-to-bulk atom ratio. A careful size control of the constituent clusters is a challenging step [4], preliminary to any tailoring of the structure and morphology of a cluster-assembled (CA) film.…”