Fabrication of Hafnium-based Nanoparticles and Nanostructures using Picosecond Laser Ablation 

chemistry Medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry Nano- and molecular-scale electronics Nano-biomaterials and bioscience Nanomagnetics Nanomaterials, thin films and nanointerfaces Nanomedicine Nanometrology and nanomechanics Nano-optics Nanopatterning, self-assembly and nanofabrication Nanostructures for energy and sensing applications Natural products chemistry Organo main group chemistry Other nanotechnology (unclassified) Other organic chemistry (unclassified) Photochemistry and photovoltaics Physical organic chemistry Supramolecular chemistry This work presents a unique and straightforward method to synthesize Hafnium Oxide (HfO2) and Hafnium Carbide (HfC) nanoparticles (NPs) and fabricate Hafnium (Hf) nanostructures (NSs) on Hf metal surfaces. An ultrafast (picosecond) laser ablation of the Hf metal target was performed in three different liquid media (deionized water (DW), toluene, and anisole) to fabricate HfO2 and HfC NPs along with Hf NSs. Spherical HfO2 NPs and nanofibers were formed when Hf was ablated in DW. Hf ablated in solvents like toluene and anisole showed the formation of core-shell NPs of HfC with graphitic shell. All the NPs showed novel optical reflectance properties. The reflectance measurements revealed that the fabricated NPs had a very high and broad optical absorption throughout the UV-Visible-NIR range. The NPs synthesized in toluene especially depicted the best absorption. On the other hand, the successful fabrication of Hf NSs with the formation of picosecond laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) with low spatial frequency (LSFL) and high spatial frequency (HSFL) orthogonal to each other was also demonstrated. The LSFL and HSFL both showed quasi-periodicity. This article presents a simple way to fabricate HfO2 and HfC NPs and provides insight into their morphological and optical characteristics.

Laser ablation in liquids, nanoparticles, nanofibers, nanostructures, hafnium When a peer-reviewed version of this preprint is available, this information will be updated in the information box above. If no peer-reviewed version is available, please cite this preprint using the following information: Das, A.; Akkanaboina, M.; Rathod, J.; Sai Prasad Goud, R.; Ravi Kumar, K.; Reddy, R. C.; Ratheesh, R.; Vutova, K.; Nageswara Rao, S.; Soma, V. R. Beilstein Arch. 2024, 202455. doi:10.3762/bxiv.2024.55.v1 Citation data can be downloaded as file using the "Download" button or used for copy/paste from the text window below. Citation data in RIS format can be imported by all major citation management software, including EndNote, ProCite, RefWorks, and Zotero. © 2024 Das et al.; licensee Beilstein-Institut. This is an open access work licensed under the terms of the Beilstein-Institut Open Access License Agreement (https://www.beilstein-archives.org/xiv/terms), which is identical to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). The reuse of material under this license requires that the author(s), source and license are credited. Third-party material in this work could be subject to other licenses (typically indicated in the credit line), and in this case, users are required to obtain permission from the license holder to reuse the material.