Preparation and optical characterization of metallic nanoparticles

Abstract

This work involves the preparation of gold-silver alloy nanoparticles and their optical characterization. The nanoparticles capped with thiol were prepared by heating metal alkanethiolates in oleylamine. Optical limiting measurements as well as ultrafast electron relaxation dynamics studies were done on the formed particles. The focus is to determine if the alloy and monometallic nanoparticles prepared exhibit optical limiting effect, and also to compare the effect across the particles of different metal ratios. As for the electron relaxation dynamics of the nanoparticles, besides focusing on the overall dynamics of the nanoparticles, comparison between particles of different metal ratios is also made.