Influence of a Quenching Gas on Nanoparticle Synthesis

A problem when synthesizing nanoparticles with gas condensation methods is to obtain narrow size distributions. To obtain good results the nucleation region and the growth region for nanoparticle formation need to be separated. A method to stop nucleation is to quench the particle growth by adding a cooling gas flow. The aim of this thesis is to study the effect of a quenching gas on the size distributions and shapes of nanoparticles synthesized with a hollow cathode. The work is done in cooperation with Linkoping University, and the experimental part of the work will be done there.