Melting, bubble-like expansion and explosion of superheated plasmonic nanoparticles

Simon Dold; Thomas Reichenbach; Alessandro Colombo; Jakob Jordan; Ingo Barke; Patrick Behrens; Nils Bernhardt; Jonathan Correa; Stefan Düsterer; Benjamin Erk; Thomas Fennel; Linos Hecht; Andrea Heilrath; Robert Irsig; Norman Iwe; Patrice Kolb; Björn Kruse; Bruno Langbehn; Bastian Manschwetus; Philipp Marienhagen; Franklin Martinez; Karl-Heinz Meiwes Broer; Kevin Oldenburg; Christopher Passow; Christian Peltz; Mario Sauppe; Fabian Seel; Rico Mayro P. Tanyag; Rolf Treusch; Anatoli Ulmer; Saida Walz; Michael Moseler; Thomas Möller; Daniela Rupp; Bernd von Issendorff

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.134.136101

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arXiv · 2309.00433

Melting, bubble-like expansion and explosion of superheated plasmonic nanoparticles

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Abstract

We report on time-resolved coherent diffraction imaging of gas-phase silver nanoparticles, strongly heated via their plasmon resonance. The x-ray diffraction images reveal a broad range of phenomena for different excitation strengths, from simple melting over strong cavitation to explosive disintegration. Molecular dynamics simulations fully reproduce this behavior and show that the heating induces rather similar trajectories through the phase diagram in all cases, with the very different outcomes being due only to whether and where the stability limit of the metastable superheated liquid is crossed.

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Simon Dold, Thomas Reichenbach, Alessandro Colombo, Jakob Jordan, Ingo Barke, Patrick Behrens, Nils Bernhardt, Jonathan Correa, Stefan Düsterer, Benjamin Erk, Thomas Fennel, Linos Hecht, Andrea Heilrath, Robert Irsig, Norman Iwe, Patrice Kolb, Björn Kruse, Bruno Langbehn, Bastian Manschwetus, Philipp Marienhagen, Franklin Martinez, Karl-Heinz Meiwes Broer, Kevin Oldenburg, Christopher Passow, Christian Peltz, Mario Sauppe, Fabian Seel, Rico Mayro P. Tanyag, Rolf Treusch, Anatoli Ulmer, Saida Walz, Michael Moseler, Thomas Möller, Daniela Rupp, Bernd von Issendorff. 2023-09-01. Melting, bubble-like expansion and explosion of superheated plasmonic nanoparticles. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.134.136101

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