In-situ study of Ag nanoparticle hydrosol optical spectra evolution during laser ablation/fragmentation

The results of in-situ monitoring of a laser fragmentation process of a largely polydisperse and morphologically heterogeneous citrate-reduced Ag hydrosol containing a fraction of Ag nanowires are presented. The laser fragmentation was performed using several wavelengths of the incident laser pulses (1064, 532 and 355 nm). Surface plasmon extinction spectra monitoring the nanoparticle fragmentation process were acquired pulse by pulse and related to transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images and statistical TEM image analysis of Ag nanoparticles collected in selected stages of the fragmentation. It was found that, due to different interactions of the laser pulses of various wavelengths with a specific fraction of the Ag nanoparticles in the hydrosol, the course of the fragmentation process depends on the wavelength, leading to different size distributions of the nanoparticles in the resulting hydrosol. The laser pulses of 532 nm wavelength are the most effective for the fragmentation process of the citrate-reduced Ag hydrosol, yielding the narrowest size distribution and the smallest mean radius of the Ag nanoparticles. PACS 81.07.-b; 73.21.-b; 81.16.-c