Preparation of silver spheres by selective laser heating in silver-containing precursor solution

Dispersed uniform submicron-sized silver spheres were prepared by selective laser heating in the silver-containing precursor solution, which was produced by dissolving the irregular Ag2O in aliphatic amine. By optimizing the process conditions, silver spheres in the range of 578 +/- 109 nm were obtained. The smooth surface morphology and solid structure were studied by SEM and TEM. The silver content was characterized by XRD and EDS. Finally, the mechanism of the silver spheres formation was also discussed in detail. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America