Formation of gallium nanoparticles by thermal evaporation method

Abstract

The conditions have been developed for obtaining of gallium (Ga) nanoparticles by thermal evaporation method in an argon atmosphere on glass carbon substrates. Ga particles research was carried out by the developed intelligent analysis method of the images of the micrographs obtained under a scanning electron microscope. It is shown, that temperature of glass carbon substrate and the condensation time of the melt determine number of the nanoparticles and microparticles. Ga nanoparticles with 10 – 100 nm sizes and microparticles with up to 500 nm sizes were formed on the substrates with the condensation time of 10 – 20 s. Ga nanoparticles had a shape close to spherical, and their amount increased with the increase of the condensation time. The increase of the substrate temperature from 118 to 124 °С provided the decrease of 20 % in the average sizes of most Ga nanoparticles and the increase of their number by a factor of 7 – 20.