Structural, optical and morphological investigations of silver nanoparticles prepared via microplasma glow discharge

The effects of plasma source environment on structural, chemical, morphological and optical properties of silver nanoparticles are reported. The nanoparticles of different sizes were prepared by atmospheric pressure microplasma glow discharge in which precursor concentrations was changed to obtain the particles of different sizes. The experiments were carried out by using different source gases helium and argon and fixing the other parameters such as discharge voltage, discharge time, and rate of feeding gas at room temperature. The mechanism of plasma reduction, nucleation and particle formation is discussed in detail. The prepared particles were in nanometer range, spherical shape and crystalline orientation, mainly in the form of face centered cubic structure. This study reveals that the helium as a source gas produces larger particles than that of the argon gas. The findings indicate that argon as a source produces fine and small silver nanoparticles prepared via microplasma glow discharge technique.

Automated summary

The effects of plasma source environment on the properties of silver nanoparticles were investigated. Nanoparticles of different sizes were obtained by changing the precursor concentrations during atmospheric pressure microplasma glow discharge. The experiments were conducted using helium and argon as source gases. It was found that helium produced larger particles compared to argon, which resulted in fine and small silver nanoparticles when using argon as the source gas via microplasma glow discharge technique.