Nanoparticles by Laser Ablation

This review concerns nanoparticles collected in the form of nanopowder or a colloidal solution by laser ablating a solid target that lies in a gaseous or a liquid environment. The paper discusses the advantages of the method as compared with other methods for nanoparticle synthesis, outlines the factors on which the properties of the produced nanoparticles depend, explains the mechanisms and models involved in the generation of nanoparticles by laser ablation, clarifies the differences between nanoparticle generation in gaseous and liquid environments, presents some experimental desigins and equipment used by the several groups for nanoparticle generation by laser ablation, describes the techniques used for “tuning” the width of the nanoparticles size distribution, and finally presents a few interesting examples of nanoparticles generated by laser ablation.