Formation of silver microbelt structures by laser irradiation of silver nanoparticles in ethanol

Abstract

In the present work, we prepared silver nanoparticles by laser ablation of pure silver plate in ethanol and then irradiated the silver nanoparticles using a 532 nm Q-switched Nd:YAG pulsed laser. Transmission electron microscopic images of the sample after irradiation clearly showed formation of big structures, such as microrods and microbelts in ethanol. The obtained microbelts had a width of about 0.166 μm and a length of 1.472 μm. The reason for the formation of such a big structure is the tendency of the nanoparticles to aggregate in ethanol before irradiation, which causes fusion of the nanoparticles.

Keywords:

• nanomaterial
• laser ablation
• nanoparticles

Acknowledgment

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia through FRGS Project #01-04-10-864FR.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.