Origin of the nano-carbon allotropes in pulsed laser ablation in liquids synthesis.

Carbon-based materials are of great technological and scientific interest in materials science. Pulsed laser ablation in liquids (PLAL) is extensively used as a method to produce nanoparticles including nanodiamond and related materials. In this feature article, we will review the use of PLAL to tackle the challenges of synthesizing carbon-based nanostructures.

γ-Al2O3 nanoparticles synthesised by pulsed laser ablation in liquids: a plasma analysis.

Pulsed laser ablation has proved its reliability for the synthesis of nano-particles and nano-structured materials, including metastable phases and complex stoichiometries. The possible nucleation of the nanoparticles in the gas phase and their growth has been little investigated, due to the difficulty of following the gas composition as well as the thermodynamic parameters. We show that such information can be obtained from the optically active plasma during its short lifetime, only a few microseconds for each laser pulse, as a result of a quick quenching due to the liquid environment.