Surface Plasmon Properties of Silver Nanostructures Fabricated Using Extremely Non-Equilibrium, Hot and Dense Plasma

We present fabrication of silver nanostructures on glass substrates using highly energetic and high fluence material ions generated by one shot of hot, dense and extremely non-equilibrium plasma such as found in modified dense plasma focus (DPF) device. The substrates were first placed at 4.0 cm and 6.0 cm from the top of anode. Nanodots and nanocapsules are observed in the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of silver ions deposited with DPF shot on glass. The interparticle distance is found to decrease whereas mean size of nanodots is found to increase slightly when the distance of glass substrate is increased from 4.0 cm to 6.0 cm. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern of the fabricated nanostructures has peaks at 2θ equals 37.90o, 44.24o and 64.20o which correspond to (111), (200) and (220) planes of silver having face-centered cubic structure. The nanostructures obtained on glass placed at 4.0 cm show surface plasmon resonance (SPR) peak at 420 nm whereas nanostructures obtained on glass placed at 6.0 cm has a SPR peak at 428 nm. Redshift of the SPR peak is attributed to increased interaction as a result of decrease in interparticle distance of the nanostructures as well as increase in mean size of nanodots.