Experimental studies of nucleation and growth of nanoparticles using a pulsed hollow cathode discharge

Abstract: The properties of the nanoparticles are highly eected by their size. In order to apply nanoparticles commercially it is desirable to synthesize them with a narrow size distribution and at high productivity. We synthesized copper nanoparticles (grains) using a plasma generated by a hollow cathode with a pulsed voltage. The gas used for sputtering was argon. The collected copper grains were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy and afterwards their size distribution was analyzed. We studied the inuence on the size distribution of four parameters: mesh; magnetic eld (B- eld); anode ring position; frequency. The productivity of the setup was highly inuenced by the mesh. No grains were found on the substrates after experiments run without both the B- eld and the mesh. The productivity was also dependent on the B- eld. We noticed that when the B- eld was applied to a no-mesh setup we collected a few grains. The size of the grains was eected by the position of the anode ring and the value of the frequency. The size of the grains enlarged when the distance between the hollow cathode and anode ring was increased. The eect of grains enlargement was also seen with increasing frequency.