Ablation of noble metals in liquids: a method to obtain nanoparticles in a thin polymeric film

Pulsed laser ablation of gold and silver in several liquids (mainly water, ethanol and chloroform) has been studied to obtain nanoparticle sols using a 532 nm, 5 ns radiation. We observed the formation of metallic and non-metallic particles in the nanometre size range depending on the liquid used as environment. The chemical state of the formed nanoparticles depends mainly on the chemical reactivity of the liquid. Here we demonstrate the possibility of using this method to obtain nanocomposite polymer films.