Competing liquid phase instabilities during pulsed laser induced self-assembly of copper rings into ordered nanoparticle arrays on SiO2

Y. WU; J. D. FOWLKES; N. A. ROBERTS; J. A. DIEZ; L. KONDIC; A. G. GONZÁLEZ; P. D. RACK

LANGMUIR

AMER CHEMICAL SOC

Lugar: Washington; Año: 2011 vol. 27 p. 13314 - 13323

0743-7463

Nanoscale copper rings of different radii, thicknesses, and widths were synthesized on silicon dioxide thin films and were subsequently liquefied via a nanosecond pulse laser treatment. During the nanoscale liquid lifetimes, the rings experience competing retraction dynamics and thin film and/or Rayleigh-Plateau types of instabilities, which lead to arraysof ordered nanodroplets. Surprisingly, the results are significantly different from those of similar experiments carried out on a Si surface. We use hydrodynamic simulations to elucidate how the different liquid/solid interactions control the different instability mechanisms in the present problem.