Nanoparticles Engineering by Pulsed Laser Ablation in Liquids: Concepts and Applications
Enza Fazio, Bilal Gökce, Alessandro De Giacomo, Moreno Meneghetti, Giuseppe Compagnini, Matteo Tommasini, Friedrich Waag, Andrea Lucotti, Chiara Zanchi, P.M. Ossi, M. Dell’Aglio, Luisa D’Urso, Marcello Condorelli, Vittorio Scardaci, Francesca Biscaglia, Lucio Litti, Marina Gobbo, Giovanni Gallo, Marco Santoro, Sebastiano Trusso, F. Neri
Abstract
Laser synthesis emerges as a suitable technique to produce ligand-free nanoparticles, alloys and functionalized nanomaterials for catalysis, imaging, biomedicine, energy and environmental applications. In the last decade, laser ablation and nanoparticle generation in liquids has proven to be a unique and efficient technique to generate, excite, fragment and conjugate a large variety of nanostructures in a scalable and clean way. In this work, we give an overview on the fundamentals of pulsed laser synthesis of nanocolloids and new information about its scalability towards selected applications. Biomedicine, catalysis and sensing are the application areas mainly discussed in this review, highlighting advantages of laser-synthesized nanoparticles for these types of applications and, once partially resolved, the limitations to the technique for large-scale applications.