Mechanisms of nanoparticle formation by ultra-short laser ablation of metals in liquid environment.

Laser ablation in liquids is now commonly used to produce colloidal nanoparticles (NPs) that have found numerous applications in different areas. In experiments, NPs of different materials can be rather easily obtained by using laser systems with various pulse durations, shapes, wavelengths, and fluences. In this paper, we focus our attention on metal (gold) NPs produced by ultra-short laser pulses.