Evolution of Light-Induced Vapor Generation at a Liquid-Immersed Metallic Nanoparticle
详细信息 查看全文
- 作者：Zheyu Fang ; Yu-Rong Zhen ; Oara Neumann ; Albert Polman ; F. Javier Garc铆a de Abajo ; Peter Nordlander ; Naomi J. Halas
- 刊名：Nano Letters
- 出版年：2013
- 出版时间：April 10, 2013
- 年：2013
- 卷：13
- 期：4
- 页码：1736-1742
- 全文大小：358K
- 年卷期：v.13,no.4(April 10, 2013)
- ISSN：1530-6992
文摘
When an Au nanoparticle in a liquid medium is illuminated with resonant light of sufficient intensity, a nanometer scale envelope of vapor鈥攁 鈥渘anobubble鈥濃€攕urrounding the particle, is formed. This is the nanoscale onset of the well-known process of liquid boiling, occurring at a single nanoparticle nucleation site, resulting from the photothermal response of the nanoparticle. Here we examine bubble formation at an individual metallic nanoparticle in detail. Incipient nanobubble formation is observed by monitoring the plasmon resonance shift of an individual, illuminated Au nanoparticle, when its local environment changes from liquid to vapor. The temperature on the nanoparticle surface is monitored during this process, where a dramatic temperature jump is observed as the nanoscale vapor layer thermally decouples the nanoparticle from the surrounding liquid. By increasing the intensity of the incident light or decreasing the interparticle separation, we observe the formation of micrometer-sized bubbles resulting from the coalescence of nanoparticle-鈥渂ound鈥?vapor envelopes. These studies provide the first direct and quantitative analysis of the evolution of light-induced steam generation by nanoparticles from the nanoscale to the macroscale, a process that is of fundamental interest for a growing number of applications.