Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology have figured out how to control gold structures by giving them a touch of ions. Surprisingly, it’s not how hard they are hit that matters, but something else.
Scientists at TU Wien have figured out a way to adjust the shape and size of tiny gold particles by shooting them with powerful charged ions. This method of changing their structures could lead to the creation of new nanostructures, such as quantum dots. The strong charged ions remove electrons from the gold particles which affects their electron structures, making the atoms inside move around differently. Even though nano-gold shapes will no longer hold onto lots of electrons, larger forms of gold can some what compensate for this loss by taking on new electrons.
Usually, when talking about physics, we choose to focus on bigger objects like metal plates and learn about their behaviour, or on much smaller things like single atoms. But there’s a whole world between these two: made up of small but not tiny things where both big and small effects work together at the same time.
Researchers at TU Wien are studying really small chunks of gold that consist of only a few thousand atoms. These tiny pieces have a diameter roughly equal to ten nanometres, and scientists are using highly charged ions to change the shape and size in a controlled manner. The findings from the tests indicated something more complicated than what you would get just from hitting a golf ball into sand – the interaction between the ion and gold piece is much more delicate.
A Look at Supercharged Ions and Their Effect on Gold Islands
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Researchers from the Institute of Applied Physics at TU Wien work with atoms that have up to 40 electrons taken away from them. Because they don’t have many electrons, these atoms are supercharged with electricity. Then, these supercharged ions hit tiny gold islands placed on top of an insulating surface and something interesting happens – the gold islands can be flattened, melted or even evaporated! How this all works depends on how much electricity is in the ions. Gabriel Szabo, who wrote a study about this, is part of Professor Richard Wilhelm’s team and is looking into this topic more closely as he works on his dissertation.
Tiny gold nuggets get hit by ions moving at incredibly fast speeds – around 500 kilometers per second! But this impact is not what changes the shape of these islands made out of gold. It’s much different from hitting a golf ball in a pile of sand or smacking a tennis ball into a birthday cake!
Gabriel Szabo says that when you shoot uncharged xenon atoms with the same energy at gold islands, it hardly alters them. This means that the energy of the atoms isn’t what matters in this situation – instead, it is their electrical charge which carries more power and causes a reaction upon impact.
Unlocking the Complexity of Nano-Gold Structures and Their Role in Our World
Understanding a complex process can be difficult, especially when it comes to more advanced subjects. But with the right guidance and resources, it is possible to gain insight into how things work and break down complicated ideas into simpler terms. Learning about the world around you can be exciting and knowing how things function can help build confidence in yourself. With enough dedication and practice, understanding any subject can be achieved.
The positive ions that hit the tiny gold piece, called a nano gold piece, steal away some of the electrons from it. In large pieces of gold, this doesn’t affect it too much because it can still share electrons with other parts of the large nugget. However, in these small nano-gold structures they no longer have an endless supply of electrons, as they act differently than normal metal. This different behavior happens between when you look at either macroscopic metal or really small atomic clusters and their nanoscale properties.
“When an ion hits the gold, it transfers its energy, throwing off the electronic structure of the entire piece of nano-gold,” explains Richard Wilhelm. “Depending on how much energy is transferred, this can cause the piece of nano-gold to melt or even vaporize.”
Using an atomic force microscope, scientists studied the effects of bombarding pieces of gold with ions. They found out that depending on the charge of the ions, the height of the gold will change. As confirmed by Gabriel Szabo, it is possible to control how much impact the ions have on the gold not by changing their speed, but rather through their charge.
Scientists need to control and understand very small structures in order to make all kinds of things, like microelectronic parts and quantum dots. Richard Wilhelm explains that this technique can help because it allows us to change the size and shape of tiny structures very specifically. This is really useful because these tiny structures have special properties that help us do certain electronic or optical tasks.
We are learning more about the world of very small but not yet microscopic things. This world is complicated, and it exists somewhere between quantum physics and what happens with solid-state materials. To really understand it, we have to pay attention to both quantum effects and how many individual particles interact with each other.
Reference: “Charge-State-Enhanced Ion Sputtering of Metallic Gold Nanoislands” by Gabriel L. Szabo, Benedykt R. Jany, Helmut Muckenhuber, Anna Niggas, Markus Lehner, Arkadiusz Janas, Paul S. Szabo, Ziyang Gan, Antony George, Andrey Turchanin, Franciszek Krok and Richard A. Wilhelm published on 22 March 2023 in Small journal (DOI: 10.1002/smll.202207263)
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