Experimental and Theoretical Studies on Aerosol Nonoparticles

This dissertation, through a systematic
investigation of the behavior of the gas-phase
dynamics of
nanoparticles generated by laser ablation of solid
target materials in background gases
and a study of the physical processes involved in
gas-phase nanoparticle processing, explores the
combination of laser and aerosol processes as a
novel approach to make thin
film materials with a level of microscopic
organization similar to that found in nature.
The integrated laser-aerosol method is very flexible
and can be used in the
synthesis of a variety of materials. In this study
it is applied to the deposition of
nanocomposite thin films comprising tetrahedral
amorphous carbon (ta-C) with
embedded metal nanoparticles. The controlled
incorporation of metal nanoparticles
enables the modulation of the electrical
conductivity of ta-C over four orders of
magnitude without significantly or adversely
affecting its mechanical properties.

Autorentext
Ph.D., Physics, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) December 2006 ; M.S., Physics, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) August 2004; M.S., Physics, Georgia State University (GSU), Atlanta, GA. August 2000 B.S., Aeronautical Engineering, Technical University of Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey. Sept 1986.

Klappentext
This dissertation, through a systematic investigation of the behavior of the gas-phase dynamics of nanoparticles generated by laser ablation of solid target materials in background gases and a study of the physical processes involved in gas-phase nanoparticle processing, explores the combination of laser and aerosol processes as a novel approach to make thin film materials with a level of microscopic organization similar to that found in nature. The integrated laser-aerosol method is very flexible and can be used in the synthesis of a variety of materials. In this study it is applied to the deposition of nanocomposite thin films comprising tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) with embedded metal nanoparticles. The controlled incorporation of metal nanoparticles enables the modulation of the electrical conductivity of ta-C over four orders of magnitude without significantly or adversely affecting its mechanical properties.