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Melting of copper nanoparticles revealed by absorption spectroscopy

Oleg Yeshchenko 1Igor Dmitruk 1Alexandr Alexeenko 2Andriy Dmytruk 3

1. Taras Shevchenko University, Kiev 03022, Ukraine
2. Gomel State Technical University, Gomel 246746, Belarus
3. Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

Abstract

We report size-dependent melting of spherical copper nanoparticles embedded into silica matrix. Based on the temperature dependence of the surface plasmon resonance energy and its width we observe two distinct melting regimes. For particles smaller than 20 nm the absorption spectrum changes monotonically with the temperature, and this allows us to assume the gradual solid-liquid phase transition (melting) of the nanoparticles or existence of superheated solid nanoparticles. In contrast, for nanoparticles larger than 20 nm, we observe a jump-like increase of the bandwidth and non-monotonic dependence of surface plasmon energy at the temperatures below the bulk melting point. This indicates that the melting of large nanoparticles is a first-order phase transition similar to the melting of bulk copper.

 

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Presentation: Poster at E-MRS Fall Meeting 2007, Symposium J, by Oleg Yeshchenko
See On-line Journal of E-MRS Fall Meeting 2007

Submitted: 2007-02-14 12:29
Revised:   2009-06-07 00:44