Regular Article

Nanoparticle forming reactive plasmas: a multidiagnostic approach^★

¹ Institut fuer Materialwissenschaft, Lehrstuhl fuer Materialverbunde, Christian-Albrechts-Universitaet zu Kiel, Kaiserstr. 2, 24143 Kiel, Germany
² Institut fuer Experimentelle und Angewandte Physik, Christian-Albrechts-Universitaet zu Kiel, Leibnizstr. 11-19, 24098 Kiel, Germany

^a e-mail: kersten@physik.uni-kiel.de

Received: 31 May 2017
Received in final form: 15 October 2017
Published online: 25 May 2018

Abstract

With an ever increasing interest in functional materials based on nanoparticles a large amount of research in this field is dedicated to the development of new production methods for nanoparticles. A promising class of methods for the production of nanoparticles is reactive plasmas. However, since the particle formation process and the interaction between the particles and the plasma are so far not completely understood, it remains difficult to control the particle formation. As the interaction between the nanoparticles and the plasma in which they are dispersed is complex the use of one or two diagnostics often provides only an incomplete understanding of the involved processes. Thus a multidiagnostic approach is needed. This contribution reviews the latest results from the study of nanoparticle formation in a hydrocarbon-based reactive plasma by such a multidiagnostic approach. It is shown that the use of various diagnostics like an IV-probe, optical emission spectroscopy, and a multipole resonance probe in conjunction with an investigation of the particle formation provides a much more detailed picture of these interesting, yet challenging, systems.