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    Controlling optical trapping of metal–dielectric hybrid nanoparticles under ultrafast pulsed excitation: a theoretical investigation
    (Cambridge : Royal Society of Chemistry, 2021) Devi, Anita; Nair, Shruthi S.; Yadav, Sumit; De, Arijit K.
    Crucial to effective optical trapping is the ability to precisely control the nature of force/potential to be attractive or repulsive. The nature of particles being trapped is as important as the role of laser parameters in determining the stability of the optical trap. In this context, hybrid particles comprising of both dielectric and metallic materials offer a wide range of new possibilities due to their tunable optical properties. On the other hand, femtosecond pulsed excitation is shown to provide additional advantages in tuning of trap stiffness through harnessing optical and thermal nonlinearity. Here we demonstrate that (metal/dielectric hybrid) core/shell type and hollow-core type nanoparticles experience more force than conventional core-type nanoparticles under both continuous-wave and, in particular, ultrafast pulsed excitation. Thus, for the first time, we show how tuning both materials properties as well as the nature of excitation can impart unprecedented control over nanoscale optical trapping and manipulation leading to a wide range of applications.
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    Design of a scalable AuNP catalyst system for plasmon-driven photocatalysis
    (Cambridge : Royal Society of Chemistry, 2018) Stolle, H.L.K.S.; Garwe, F.; Müller, R.; Krech, T.; Oberleiter, B.; Rainer, T.; Fritzsche, W.; Stolle, A.
    In this work we present a simple, fast and cost-efficient synthesis of a metal nanoparticle catalyst on a glass support for plasmon driven heterogeneous photocatalysis. It is based on efficient mixing of metal salts as particle precursors with porous glass as the supporting material in a mixer ball mill, and the subsequent realization of a complete catalyst system by laser sintering the obtained powder on a glass plate as the support. By this, we could obtain catalyst systems with a high particle proportion and an even spatial particle distribution in a rapid process, which could be applied to various kinds of metal salt resulting in plasmon active metal nanoparticles. Furthermore, the catalyst production process presented here is easily scalable to any size of area that is to be coated. Finally, we demonstrate the catalytic performance of our catalysts by a model reaction of ethanol degradation in a self-designed lab-scale reactor.
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    Porous spherical gold nanoparticles via a laser induced process
    (Cambridge : Royal Society of Chemistry, 2022) Schmidl, Gabriele; Raugust, Marc; Jia, Guobin; Dellith, Andrea; Dellith, Jan; Schmidl, Frank; Plentz, Jonathan
    Nanoparticles consisting of a mixture of several metals and also porous nanoparticles due to their special structure exhibit properties that find applications in spectroscopic detection or catalysis. Different approaches of top down or bottom up technologies exist for the fabrication of such particles. We present a novel combined approach for the fabrication of spherical porous gold nanoparticles on low-cost glass substrates under ambient conditions using a UV-laser induced particle preparation process with subsequent wet chemical selective etching. In this preparation route, nanometer-sized branched structures are formed in spherical particles. The laser process, which is applied to a silver/gold bilayer system with different individual layer thicknesses, generates spherical mixed particles in a nanosecond range and influences the properties of the fabricated nanoparticles, such as the size and the mixture and thus the spectral response. The subsequent etching process is performed by selective wet chemical removal of silver from the nanoparticles with diluted nitric acid. The gold to silver ratio was investigated by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The porosity depends on laser parameters and film thickness as well as on etching parameters such as time. After etching, the surface area of the remaining Au nanoparticles increases which makes these particles interesting for catalysis and also as carrier particles for substances. Such substances can be positioned at defined locations or be released in appropriate environments. Absorbance spectra are also analyzed to show how the altered fractured shape of the particles changes localized plasmon resonances of the resultingt particles.