Ivan L. Isaev | Searcharxiv

arXiv2010

Photostimulated Aggregation of Metal Aerosols

The effect of optical radiation on the rate of aggregation of nanoscopic particles is studied in metal aerosols. It has been shown that under light exposure, polydisperse metal aerosols can aggregate up to two orders faster due to the size dependent photoelectron effect from nanoparticles. Different size nanoparticles undergo mutual heteropolar charging when exchanging photoelectrons through the interparticle medium to result in an increased rate of aggregation. It is shown that long-range electrostatic attractive forces drive the particles into closer distances where the short-range Van-der-Waals forces become dominating. Attention is drawn to the fact that this effect may occur in various types of dispersed systems as well as in natural heteroaerosols.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2006

Spectroscopic studies of fractal aggregates of silver nanospheres undergoing local restructuring

We present an experimental spectroscopic study of large random colloidal aggregates of silver nanoparticles undergoing local restructuring. We argue that such well-known phenomena as strong fluctuation of local electromagnetic fields, appearance of "hot spots" and enhancement of nonlinear optical responses depend on the local structure on the scales of several nanosphere diameters, rather that the large-scale fractal geometry of the sample.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2005

Local anisotropy and giant enhancement of local electromagnetic fields in fractal aggregates of metal nanoparticles

We have shown within the quasistatic approximation that the giant fluctuations of local electromagnetic field in random fractal aggregates of silver nanospheres are strongly correlated with a local anisotropy factor S which is defined in this paper. The latter is a purely geometrical parameter which characterizes the deviation of local environment of a given nanosphere in an aggregate from spherical symmetry. Therefore, it is possible to predict the sites with anomalously large local fields in an aggregate without explicitly solving the electromagnetic problem. We have also demonstrated that the average (over nanospheres) value of S does not depend noticeably on the fractal dimension D, except when D approaches the trivial limit D=3. In this case, as one can expect, the average local environment becomes spherically symmetrical and S approaches zero. This corresponds to the well-known fact that in trivial aggregates fluctuations of local electromagnetic fields are much weaker than in fractal aggregates. Thus, we find that, within the quasistatics, the large-scale geometry does not have a significant impact on local electromagnetic responses in nanoaggregates in a wide range of fractal dimensions. However, this prediction is expected to be not correct in aggregates which are sufficiently large for the intermediate- and radiation-zone interaction of individual nanospheres to become important.

physics.optics↗