A Novel Method of Probing the Fractional Composition of Nanosystems

Abstract

The article presents a comparison of the traditional methods to investigate the fractional composition of nanosized powders, namely atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), dynamic light scatterin, (DLS) and a new one – analysis of the aerosol products of submillimeter pulse laser ablation (SLA). As has previously been proven, biological macromolecules retain activity after ablation under submillimeter wavelengths, molecules become separated in the aerosol phase and each sort of molecules forms its own fraction of the aerosol particles. We suggest that this process is made possible as the result of influence on the hydrogen and van der Waals’ bonds, with the energies within the submillimeter range. Results of investigations on SiO2 and artificial diamond clusters using the above methods in both powder and colloid states are discussed. SLA with subsequent detection of aerosol products with the help of convenient aerosol equipment is found to be simple, fast and informative, and can act as a competitor to mass spectrometry, X-ray scattering and other methods.

Keywords

• thz laser ablation
• nanopowders
• aerosol analysis