Abstract
This article reports for the first time a unique study performed to regulate the ring diameter of nanoclusters fabricated during femtosecond laser ablation of solids and a mechanism is proposed for the formation of those ring clusters. The ring nanoclusters are made out of nanoparticles with a range of 10–30 nm. Our experimental studies showed the synthesis of ring nanoclusters with random diameter distribution on metals, nonmetals, and semiconductors, such as titanium, aluminum, glasses, ceramics, graphite, and silicon. To regulate the ring size, the effects of laser parameters, such as wavelength, pulse duration, pulse energy, and repetition rate on the ring diameter are analyzed. The influence of ablated materials and the background gas on ring size is also elaborated in this article. The motion of plume species under the influence of ponderomotive force on free electrons possibly played a key role in the formation of the ring-patterned nanoclusters. This study could help to understand the fundamentals in laser ablative nanosynthesis as well as to produce nanostructures with organized ring diameter that controls the density and porosity of those 3D nanostructures.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Corde S, Phuoc KT (2011) Plasma wave undulator for laser-accelerated electrons. Phys Plasmas 18:033111–033115. doi:10.1063/1.3569827
Eichmann U, Nubbemeyer T, Rottke H, Sandner W (2009) Acceleration of neutral atoms in strong short-pulse laser fields. Nature 461:1261–1264. doi:10.1038/nature08481
Harilal SS, Bindhu CV, Tillack MS, Najmabadi F, Gaeris AC (2003) Internal structure and expansion dynamics of laser ablation plumes into ambient gases. J Appl Phys 93:2380–2388. doi:10.1063/1.1544070
Huang CY, Wang DY, Wang CH, Chen YT, Wang YT, Jiang YT, Yang YJ, Chen CC, Chen YF (2010) Efficient light harvesting by photon downconversion and light trapping in hybrid ZnS nanoparticles/Si nanotips solar cells. ACS Nano 4:5849–5854. doi:10.1021/nn101817s
Kumar A (2005) Ponderomotively-generated magnetic field in a relativistic gaussian amplitude modulated laser filament in an inhomogeneous plasma. Phys Scripta 71:204–206. doi:10.1238/Physica.Regular.071a00204
Malka V, Fritzler S, Lefebvre E, Aleonard MM, Burgy F, Chambaret JP, Chemin JF, Krushelnick K, Malka G, Mangles SPD, Najmudin Z, Pittman M, Rousseau JP, Scheurer JN, Walton B, Dangor AE (2002) Electron acceleration by a wake field forced by an intense ultrashort laser pulse. Science 298:1596–1600. doi:10.1126/science.1076782
Okano Y, Oguri K, Nishikawa T, Nakano H (2006) Observation of femtosecond-laser-induced ablation plumes of aluminum using space- and time-resolved soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Appl Phys Lett 89:221502–221503. doi:10.1063/1.2398931
Schwoerer H (2008) Particle acceleration with lasers. S Afr J Sci 104:299–304
Scully MO, Zubairy MS (1991) Simple laser accelerator: optics and particle dynamics. Phys Rev A 44:2656–2663. doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.44.2656
Sivakumar M, Venkatakrishnan K, Tan B (2010a) Enhancement of silicon nanostructures generation using dual wavelength double pulse femtosecond laser under ambient condition. J Appl Phys 107:044307–044313. doi:10.1063/1.3309422
Sivakumar M, Venkatakrishnan K, Tan B (2010b) Synthesis of nanoscale tips using femtosecond laser radiation under ambient condition. Nanoscale Res Lett 5:438–441. doi:10.1007/s11671-009-9502-8
Sivakumar M, Venkatakrishnan K, Tan B (2011) Synthesis of TiO2 nanoscale rods with MHz femtosecond laser irradiationof single crystal surface and characterisation. AIP Adv 1:022134–022135. doi:10.1063/1.3600705
Tajima T, Dawson JM (1979) Laser electron accelerator. Phys Rev Lett 43:267–270. doi:0.1103/PhysRevLett.43.267
Umstadter D (2003) Relativistic laser–plasma interactions. J Phys D 36:R151–R165. doi:10.1088/0022-3727/36/8/202
Venkatakrishnan K, Tan B (2009) Synthesis of fibrous nanoparticle aggregates by femtosecond laser ablation in air. Opt Express 17:1064–1069. doi:10.1364/OE.17.001064
Venkatakrishnan K, Vipparty D, Tan B (2011) Nanofibre fabrication by femtosecond laser ablation of silica glass. Opt Express 19:15770–15776. doi:10.1364/OE.19.015770
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sivayoganathan, M., Tan, B. & Venkatakrishnan, K. Formation of ring-patterned nanoclusters by laser–plume interaction. J Nanopart Res 15, 1386 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-012-1386-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-012-1386-3