Nanoparticle formation by pulsed laser ablation of TiO

Yamaki, Tetsuya; Ito, Hisayoshi; Matsubara, Masakazu*; Abe, Hiroaki*; Asai, Keisuke*

Transactions of the Materials Research Society of Japan, 28(3), p.879 - 882, 2003/10

Titanium oxide nanoparticles were formed by pulsed laser ablation of a TiO rutile pellet with a KrF excimer laser ( = 248 nm). The ablation was performed in atmospheres of Ar and O at total pressures ranging from 0.2 and 10 Torr. At a higher pressure than 1 Torr, Ti in the nanoparticles had an oxidation state of 4+ to form TiO. According to the X-ray diffraction analyses, the nanopartiles were found to contain both the anatase and rutile phases, which crystallized through extremely energetic, non-equilibrium reactions in an ablation plume. In contrast, at pressures of 0.2 and 0.5 Torr, the nanoparticles were composed of dominant TiO with a small amount of a less oxidized phase such as TiO. The important result is that the XRD patterns of the samples prepared at 1 and 5 Torr showed the different anatase-to-rutile ratio of the peak intensities. This indicates that the weight fraction of the rutile/anatase crystalline phases can be controlled by the ambient gas pressure.