Study on the productivity of silicon nanoparticles by picosecond laser ablation in water: towards gram per hour yield

Abstract

An investigation on the productivity of silicon nanoparticles by picosecond laser ablation in water is presented. A systematic experimental study is performed as function of the laser wavelength, fluence and ablation time. In case of ablation at 1064 nm silicon nanoparticles with a mean diameter of 40 nm are produced. Instead, ablation at 355 nm results in nanoparticles with a mean diameter of 9 nm for short ablation time while the mean diameter decreases to 3 nm at longer ablation time. An original model based on the in-situ ablation/photo-fragmentation physical process is developed, and it very well explains the experimental productivity findings. The reported phenomenological model has a general validity, and it can be applied to analyze pulsed laser ablation in liquid in order to optimize the process parameters for higher productivity. Finally, an outlook is given towards gram per hour yield of ultra-small silicon nanoparticles.

Photoluminescence analysis of colloidal silicon nanoparticles in ethanol produced by double-pulse ns laser ablation

“…Higher ablation yields in DPLA (especially at inter-pulse delay times, ∆t delay ≤ τ pulse ~10 ns) can be due to the higher coupling efficiency of the second laser pulse with the melted target induced by the laser pre-pulse, resulting the more efficient laser energy absorption and deposition within the irradiated silicon target [45]. However, the maximum ablation efficiency of silicon in ethanol by DPLA (~1.5 ng/pulse) is less than the reported value of ~9 ng/pulse for ps PLAL of silicon in water with the laser energy density of ~6 J cm -2 on target surface [43]. It must be noted that the boiling temperature of ethanol (78 ˚C) is much lower than the case of water (100˚C).…”

“…It was shown that PLA of silicon in liquid media is a simple one-step technique, suitable for producing SiNPs with subsequent surface modifications. Up to now by using long pulse, short pulse and ultra-short pulse lasers, many studies have been performed to investigate the optical properties of colloidal SiNPs with different size and surface characteristics produced by PLA in liquids by changing the laser parameters or surrounding solvent [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][39][40][41][42][43]. However, in order to clarify different aspects of the optical properties of SiNPs there are many interests to find more new methods for laser-assisted fabrication of silicon nanostructures with accurate control of nanoparticles size and surface engineering.…”

Silica Xerogel Obtained by Ultrashort Laser Irradiation of Tetraethyl Orthosilicate

“…[17][18][19][20] The formation of SiO x nanoparticles duringL AL is due to the reactionb etween the highly reactive silicon nanoparticles obtained by laser ablation and the oxygen present on the surrounding medium. Considering that the thermal decomposition reaction is normally carried out at at emperature of about 1000 K, and that this temperature value can be easily reached inside the CB, the most probablem echanism for the first steps of the silica xerogel formation by laser irradiation is ah igh temperature gas phase decomposition.…”

“…The energy release by the plasma to the liquid determines the formation of ac avitation bubble (CB), that movesi nt he liquid with velocity of the order of the sound speed in the mediumand can reach amaximum radius of the order of millimeters. [17][18][19] When the ablation is carried out in water,t he reactionb etween silicon and dissolved oxygen during ablation gives to the formation of as ilicon oxide shell around as ilicon core. [13][14][15][16] The nanomaterials formation can occur inside the cavitation bubble during its expansion phase.…”

High‐Purity Hybrid Organolead Halide Perovskite Nanoparticles Obtained by Pulsed‐Laser Irradiation in Liquid

“…[2,29,35] An excesso fs urfactants and alkylammonium halide is typically required to increaset he solubility of the intermediate metal-halide species. In recent years, PLIL has been successfully exploited to obtain metal, [41][42][43][44][45][46][47] oxide, [48][49][50] semiconductor, [51][52][53][54][55] and hybrid [56][57][58] nanostructures with high purity and controlled size, even at high pressure. [8,29,36] As demonstrated in recent studies, this synthetic approachs ometimes produces am ixture of HyP nanoparticles and nanoplatelets.…”