I am trying to defend my project "Synthesis and Detection of Nanoparticles using Dual-Pulse Femtosecond Laser-Induced
Breakdown Spectroscopy" and reply the reviewer comments. Could you help in the following comment.
This proposal has two main objectives: (1) the use of a short pulse, femtosecond (fs) laser to generate
nanoparticles by ablating a target and (2) use of the same laser to detect and identify these particles by the
method of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, known as LIBS.
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While both claims are defensible, the proposal is weak for several reasons. From an applied standpoint,
which is the main thrust of the proposal, the improvements likely to be realized using fs lasers are marginal.
Regarding objective (1), while it is true that particles produced with fs lasers have different properties than those produced with ns pulses, it is unlikely that such effects will be competitive with chemical synthetic protocols. Nanoparticles used today in such areas as medicine, sensing, nanoelectronics, and photovoltaic cells have very sophisticated chemical and physical requirements, such as multilayer structures used for drug delivery or aligned nanorod ensembles used in dye-sensitized photovoltaic cells. While there may be specialized cases where laser-generated nanoparticles are preferable, for most applications this methodology is not very competitive with chemical synthesis. Regarding objective (2), ns-LIBS is already capable of
detecting nanoparticles below the threshold for health hazards, as documented by ref. 54 as well as in a paper by Dutouquet et al. (Spectrochimica Acta B, 63, 1183 (2008)). In light of this success, and considering the much lower cost of a ns-based detector, the motivation for using a fs-based detector is weakened.
A further weakness of the proposal is the absence of a plan for quantitative measurement, which is a consequence of using the same laser to generate and detect the particles. For realizing objective (2), it is necessary to use a well-defined mono-dispersed source of nanoparticles to calibrate the detection sensitivity.
Most of the answers are already given in your question. I am working with femtosecond laser processing of materials for last several years. Most of the nanostructures we fabricate, using femtosecond laser, are possible to produce using other methods. In most of the cases, we can fabricate perfect nanostructures using other techniques. However, in some cases, other technologies are complicated, time consuming, and expensive. The current researches in the field of femtosecond laser are limited to the fabrication of different micro/nano-structures using femtosecond lasers. The focus is the possibility of fabrication using femtosecond lasers not the competitiveness with other technologies. It is because this technology needs more time to mature.
I need to convince the reviewers that fs is most useful than chemical and ns laser.
The only way is to compare the processing time and number of steps involved during processing. However, I don't have any idea about the processing time or steps for chemical processing.
Here is a list of some publications in the field:
(1) S. Eliezer, N. Eliaz, E. Grossman, D. Fisher, I. Gouzman, Z. Henis, S. Pecker, Y. Horovitz, M. Fraenkel, S. Maman, and Y. Lereah," Synthesis of nanoparticles with femtosecond laser pulses," Physical Review B 69, 144119 (2004).
(2) Stephan Barcikowski, Ana Menendez-Manjon, and Boris Chichkov, "Generation of nanoparticle colloids by picosecond and femtosecond laser ablations in liquid flow," Applied Physics Letters 91, 083113 (2007).
(3) Mushtaq A. Sobhan, Michael J. Withford, and Ewa M. Goldys, "Fluorescent gold nanoparticles produced by femtosecond laser ablation with CTAB as a surfactant," ICONN 2010, 14-16 (2010).
(4) Joseph Lik Hang Chau, Chun-Yen Chen, Min-Chieh Yang, Kwang-Lung Lin, Shunichi Sato, Takahiro Nakamura, Chin-Chao Yang, and Chung-Wei Cheng," Femtosecond laser synthesis of bimetallic Pt-Au nanoparticles," Materials Letters 65(4), 804-807 (2011).
(5) S. Besner, A. V. Kabashin, and M. Meunier, "Fragmentation of colloidal nanoparticles by femtosecond laser-induced supercontinuum generation," Applied Physics Letters 89(23), 233122 (2006).
(6) S. Noel, J. Hermann, and T. Itina, "Investigation of nanoparticle generation during femtosecond laser ablation of metals," Applied Surface Science 253, 6310-6315 (2007).
Dear Prof. Tawfik
Please check the special issues in PCCP (2013) and JPCC (2012) which dicuss the importance of ultrafast ablation in liquids. If possibe I will send the links in my next post.
Venugopal Rao Soma
Check these
JPCC:
http://pubs.acs.org/toc/jpccck/115/12
PCCP:
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/journals/articlecollectionlanding?sercode=cp&themeid=e949a5a619b7cb0c508064419c1f1796
Check this website..
http://lalnano.jp/ANGEL2014/
Laser ablation and excitation of nanoparticles in liquids has been proposed as an alternative synthesis method of advanced nanomaterials, addressing some of these drawbacks of the current fabrication methods. For the last decade, this method has proven to be a unique and efficient technique to generate, excite, fragment, and conjugate elemental, nanoalloy, semiconductor, ceramic, and organic nanoparticles. This exciting method bears strong advantages: (i) Chemical precursors are not required and thus a pure colloid is obtained by a simple, one step process. (ii) Laser-generated nanoparticles have a high surface activity - the surface is not blocked by ligands. (iii) This method can be applied universally with an almost unlimited variety of materials and solvents. It has recently been shown that these advantages are of value in comparison to conventional synthesis, in particular in the applications to the fields of biomedicine and catalyst. Pulse laser excitation induces not only ablation of solids but also fragmentation, melting, and annealing, which results in the unique properties of the generated nanomaterials, such as submicrometer spheres, metastable phases, and organic-inorganic nano-composites. The recent advancements and critical aspects in the fields of pulse laser-based nanomaterial generation in liquids will be discussed at ANGEL 2014.
I hope that i will have some data to show at your con. 2014. would you pls. add my E-mail to your notifications about your conf.
I want to add some points here on quantitative measurement from a different view. It may be difficult to perform quantitative measurement without calibration in emission spectroscopy. LIBS is one of the emerging analytical techniques and can be advantageous over other known techniques for some specific purposes. One very good example may be application in characterization of nuclear material as LIBS is fast and can perform remote analysis. Internal standardization process can be applied for quantitative elemental analysis. Ratio of analyte/matrix emission line can be used to reduce other effects such as fluctuation in laser energy. Please see the attached file for more explanation. Good luck Dr. Walid with your interesting proposal!
Thanks for your comment. Your task Libs for nuclear is very important and interest to me since I was thinking about it a week ago . I will return to you after reading your file.
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