Synthesis and microstructure investigation of heterogeneous metal‐plasma polymer Ag/HMDSO nanoparticles

Abstract

Metal-polymer nanocomposites have gained increasing attention due to the wide potential applications field. Synthesis of nanoparticles from the gas phase is an intensively studied alternative to the chemical preparation methods. We present a onestep procedure that combines magnetron-based gas aggregation cluster source of silver nanoparticles and simultaneous plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition of hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO). The key parameter of the process, significantly influencing the morphology and microstructure of studied nanoparticles, was found to be the amount of HMDSO added to the deposition chamber as witnessed by small angle X-ray scattering and X-ray diffraction methods combined with transmission electron microscopy and UV-Vis spectrophotometry. The presence of HMDSO in the chamber leads to changes in the size distribution and also in the architecture of prepared nanoparticles. The increasing amount of HMDSO induces the formation of individual core-shell nanoparticles, chains of core-shell nanoparticles, and for the highest concentration of HMDSO, the synthesis of multi-core-shell nanoparticles. The size of crystallites in the silver cores of nanoparticles decreases with addition of HMDSO, which prevents further aggregation.

Plasma‐based synthesis of iron carbide nanoparticles

“…Such a structure is similar to the previously reported multicore@shell arrangement of NPs synthesized when the silver target was sputtered in Ar/hexamethyldisiloxane. [ 30,31 ] The origin of such highly heterogeneous NPs with clearly distinguishable phases may be explained by two simultaneously running processes: the growth of metallic NPs and plasma polymerization of organic precursor, n ‐hexane in our case. Metallic NPs are in this scenario formed by spontaneous nucleation from iron vapor in a close vicinity of the sputtered target, where the concentration of metallic atoms is maximal.…”

Challenges in the deposition of plasma polymer nanoparticles using gas aggregation source: Rebounding upon impact and how to land them on a substrate

“…While such pp‐NPs are quite easy to produce and their formation is relatively insensitive to the purity of the process, the greatest and often overlooked challenge is to collect them on the substrate. [ 55 ] Unlike metal or metal oxide NPs, the reflection of plasma polymer or plasma polymer containing NPs from a substrate readily occurs and has been observed in all our previous experiments, [ 37,40,41,49,52–54,56,57 ] even though it was not always realized at the time. In other words, while the NPs beam may be very intense (in the right conditions, the deposition rates were shown to reach values of micrometers per second), the incoming pp‐NPs may also completely rebound when they hit the substrate, leaving no deposit.…”

Hybrid approaches coupling sol–gel and plasma for the deposition of oxide-based nanocomposite thin films: a review

“…More recently, gas aggregation nanocluster sources (GAS) have been used for the preparation of metal [76][77][78][79][80][81][82] or metal oxide nanoparticles such as TiO 2 ones [83][84][85][86], mainly based on vacuum metal evaporation or magnetron sputtering. This takes place in an aggregation chamber enclosed by an orifice through which the expanding gas (usually an inert gas such as Ar or N 2 ) carries the clusters into the low-pressure deposition chamber (typically ultrahigh vacuum one) [87].…”