Speaker
Dr
Patrizio Antici
(Institut Lumiere Extreme)
Description
We present a method for the synthesis of micro-crystals and micro-structured surfaces using laser-accelerated protons. In this method, a solid surface material having a low melting temperature is irradiated with laser-generated protons for only a few tens of ps, provoking in the ablation process thermodynamic conditions that are between the boiling and the critical point. The intense and very quick proton energy deposition (sub-ns) induces an explosive boiling and produces microcrystals that aggregate in a plasma plume composed by ions and atoms detached from the laser-irradiated surface. The synthesized particles in the plasma plume then aggregate on a neighboring, non-irradiated, cold solid secondary target surface.
We experimentally verify the synthesizing methods by depositing low-melting-material microcrystals - such as gold - onto nearby silver surfaces and modeling the proton/matter interaction via a montecarlo code, confirming that we are in the above described thermodynamic conditions. Morphological and crystallinity measurements indicate the formation of gold octahedral crystals with dimensions of 1.2 μm (standard deviation < 5%), uniformly distributed on an entire silver surface (5 mm x 1 cm). This laser-accelerated particle based synthesis method paves the way for the development of new material synthesis.
Primary authors
Prof.
Marianna Barberio
(INRS)
Dr
Patrizio Antici
(Institut Lumiere Extreme)
Co-authors
Antonia Morabito
(ROMA1)
Ceferino Obcemea
(Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center)
Massimiliano Sciscio'
(ROMA1)
Mr
Simon Vallieres
(INRS)
Mrs
Simona Veltri
(Università della Calabria - DiBest)
