Nanostructuring of AlCu alloy NPs obtained by FLASiS{\dag}

• Main Authors: Santillán, Jesica M. J, Arboleda, David Muñetón, Fornaro, Osvaldo, Lester, Marcelo, Schinca, Daniel C, Scaffardi, Lucía B
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 13-08-2024
• Subjects: Physics - Materials Science; Physics - Optics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2408.07140

In the nanometric scale, alloy nanomaterials behave as new materials since
they are able to display structures and properties which are different from
those of the pure metal nanostructures or bulk alloys. In this work, the
compositional characteristics of AlCu alloy nanoparticles obtained by
{\dag}Femtosecond Laser Ablation Synthesis in Solution (FLASiS) on solid
targets with different percentages of Al and Cu were studied. Morphology,
structure, composition and plasmonic behaviour of the nanoparticles were
analysed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron
Microscopy (TEM), Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and Optical
Extinction Spectroscopy (OES). From the obtained results, underlying formation
mechanism and a configuration model of a host alumina matrix with copper
inclusions is proposed. Analysis of the plasmonic resonance spectral region in
the extinction spectra of the synthesized colloids using this model show that
the nanoparticles have a Cu filling factors of about 0.02 which agrees with
those determined independently from TEM images. The amount of Al and Cu
components in the nanoparticle depends on their relative percentages in the
initial solid target. Here we describe the possible kinetic formation mechanism
of these nanostructures.