The Influence of Ablation Speed on the Synthesis of Carbon Nanostructures Via Pulsed Laser Ablation of Asphalt in Ethanol

Abstract

Pulsed liquid laser ablation is considered a green method for the synthesis of nanostructures because there are no byproducts formed after the ablation. In this paper, a fiber laser of wavelength 1.064 µm, peak power of 1 mJ, pulse duration of 120 ns, and repetition rate of 20 kHz, was used to produce carbon nanostructures including carbon nanospheres and carbon nanorods from the ablation of asphalt in ethanol at ablation speeds of (100, 75, 50, 10 mm/s).  The morphology, composition and optical properties of the synthesized samples were studied experimentally using FESEM, HRTEM, EDS, and UV-vis spectrophotometer. Results showed that the band gap energy decreased with decreasing the ablation speed (increasing the ablation time), the minimum mean particle size of the synthesized samples was 76 nm at an ablation speed of 100mm/s, while the maximum mean particle size was 98 nm at ablation speed of 50 mm/s, the nanospheres were agglomerated to form larger spherical nanoshapes. All the synthesized carbon nano colloids exhibited a blue-green PL emission. It was concluded that the presence of carbon nanorods has an effect on the optical properties of the synthesized nanospheres.