Tuning of the characteristics of Au nanoparticles produced by solid target laser ablation into water by changing the irradiation parameters

We report the production of Au nanoparticles with different average sizes and size distributions, by laser ablation of a solid Au target into pure deionized water. Tuning laser parameters such as pulse duration, energy, and wavelength is possible to tune the size and the size distributions of the produced nanoparticles into the liquid. We demonstrate the possibility of production of highly monodispersed colloidal solutions, in which the average nanoparticle size ranges from 3 to 10 nm, using laser pulses of ns duration. Laser ablation using fs laser pulses can also produce very small nanoparticles, although a small population of bigger nanoparticles is always present. Low and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM), in combination with UV-Vis spectroscopy have been employed for the characterization of our samples. Microsc. Res. Tech. 73:937-943, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.