The motivation for this paper from the lab of Douglas B. Chrisey on the formation of silver nanostructures by laser ablation could be either scientific of aesthetic. Although I am sure that Yan and co-workers uses a purely scientific approach, the beauty of the images cannot be denied. Nanoscopic sheets, needles, cubes and stars have been made without any form of surface decoration; simply employing clean water, pure silver and an immensely powerful laser.
Complex silver-nanostructures are commonly prepared by using surfactants to induce a specific shape. Some applications require ‘naked’ silver surfaces, which in turn require alternative routes for preparation of silver structures. By using pulsed laser ablation in liquid the authors of this paper are capable of producing a variety of differently shaped silver-nanostructures, without the aid of additives. The fundamentals behind the parent technique can be found in the book “Pulsed Laser Deposition of Thin Films” by Douglas B. Chrisey and Graham K. Hubler, where the cutting edge is represented by this paper in PCCP:
Generation of Ag–Ag2O complex nanostructures by excimer laser ablation of Ag in water
Zijie Yan, Ruqiang Bao and Douglas B. Chrisey
DOI: 10.1039/C2CP42668D
by Dr Thomas Just Sørensen
