Title: Pulsed laser liquid-solid interaction synthesis of Pt, Au, Ag and Cu nanosuspensions and their stability

Authors: M. Maaza, Herculano Chambalo, S. Ekambaram, O. Nemraoui, B.D. Ngom, N. Manyala

Addresses: Nanosciences Laboratories, Materials Research Group, iThemba LABS, National Research Foundation, Old Faure Road, P.O. Box 129, Somerset West, South Africa. ' Department of Physics, University of Eduardo Mondlane, P.O. Box 257, Maputo, Mozambique. ' Forney Hall Chemical Engineering Department, Purdue University, 480 Stadium Mall Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA. ' Department of Physics and Engineering, University of Zululand, Private bag X1001, Kwadlangezwa, South Africa. ' African Laser Centre, CSIR, Building 46, Meiring Naude Road, Pretoria 0001, South Africa. ' Department of Physics and lectronics, National University of Lesotho, Maseru, Lesotho

Abstract: This paper reports on the stability of Pt, Ag, Au and Cu nanosuspensions synthesised by Laser Liquid-Solid Interaction (LLSI) with the fundamental Nd:YAG frequency. The stability of the metallic nanoparticles in three different dispersing liquid agents, namely, water, acetonitrile and pentane, has been investigated in terms of the solvents| polarisability index, local electric molecular dipole and viscosity. These parameters were varied within the following value range: 0.0-10.2 PI, 0.0-3.44 Debyes and 0.23-1.0 cP, respectively. The stability of the metallic nanoparticles within the dispersing agents was mainly investigated via their respective surface plasmon peaks which occur in UV-VIS spectral range.

Keywords: nanoparticles; laser ablation; surfactant; molecular polarisability; viscosity; surface plasmon resonance; liquid-solid interaction; platinum; gold; copper; silver; nanosuspensions.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNP.2008.020897

International Journal of Nanoparticles, 2008 Vol.1 No.3, pp.212 - 223

Published online: 23 Oct 2008 *

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