Synthesis of silver nanoparticles by laser ablation in ethanol: A pulsed photoacoustic study

Abstract The pulsed photoacoustic (PA) technique was used to study the synthesis by laser ablation of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) in ethanol. PA technique allowed to determine the production rate per laser pulse and concentration of synthesized Ag-NPs. The samples were produced by using a pulsed Nd:YAG laser with 1064 nm of wavelength and 7 ns of pulse duration. The laser pulse energy varied from 10 to 100 mJ. Transmission electron microscopy micrographs demonstrated that the obtained nanoparticles were spherical with an average size close to 10 nm. The absorption spectra of the colloids showed a plasmon absorption peak around 400 nm. The PA analyses showed a significant reduction of the production rate of Ag-NPs during the first hundreds of laser pulses. For a higher number of pulses this rate was kept almost constant. Finally, we found that the root mean square (RMS) value of the PA signal was proportional to the laser pulse fluence on the target surface. Thus PA technique was useful to monitor the ablation process.