EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

In the growing field of nanotechnology there is an increasing need to develop production methods for nanoparticles that provide control and reproducibility, as well as versatility and ease of use. The spark discharge generator (SDG) is a flexible technique that meets these specifications, in the entire nanometer range (1–100 nm), and beyond. The technique is based on the production of metallic nanoparticles in the form of aerosols, via electric discharges. The degrees of freedom of the SDG experimental technique consist of both fixed parameters, such as charge and discharge resistance, and capacitance, as well as easily changing variables, such as input voltage, electrode distance, and incoming gas flow. The current work focuses on the production of nanoparticle clusters, at around 15-20 nm of diameter, using rod to rod SDG with either Gold or Copper electrodes. In this work, the aerosol produced is channeled to a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) and a Condensation Particle Counter (CPC) from where the particle cluster distributions can be obtained. The nanoparticles are characterized by TEM, while the air filters where the particles are deposited are additionally characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The distribution curves show that in Full Width Half Maximum, Au nanoparticles' size distributions are between 20-50 nm and Cu nanoparticles' are between 15-35 nm (SMPS). SEM images provide information on deposited concentrations. In this way, they substantiate that most important altering parameters seem to be the distance between electrodes, the incoming N2 gas flow and the feed voltage as well. Gold Nanoparticles were also tested for SERS detectors utilization.