TY - JOUR
T1 - Aluminum Oxide Nanoparticle Films Deposited from a Nonthermal Plasma
T2 - Synthesis, Characterization, and Crystallization
AU - Li, Zhaohan
AU - Wray, Parker R.
AU - Su, Magel P.
AU - Tu, Qiaomiao
AU - Andaraarachchi, Himashi
AU - Jeong, Yong Jin
AU - Atwater, Harry A.
AU - Kortshagen, Uwe R.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2020/9/29
Y1 - 2020/9/29
N2 - Aluminum oxide, both in amorphous and crystalline forms, is a widely used inorganic ceramic material because of its chemical and structural properties. In this work, we synthesized amorphous aluminum oxide nanoparticles using a capacitively coupled nonthermal plasma utilizing trimethylaluminum and oxygen as precursors and studied their crystallization and phase transformation behavior through postsynthetic annealing. The use of two reactor geometries resulted in amorphous aluminum oxide nanoparticles with similar compositions but different sizes. Size tuning of these nanoparticles was achieved by varying the reactor pressure to produce amorphous aluminum oxide nanoparticles ranging from 6 to 22 nm. During postsynthetic annealing, powder samples of amorphous nanoparticles began to crystallize at 800 °C, forming crystalline θ and γphase alumina. Their phase transformation behavior was found to be size-dependent in that powders of small 6 nm amorphous particles transformed to form phase-pure α-Al2O3 at 1100 °C, while powders of large 11 nm particles remained in the θ and γphases. This phenomenon is attributed to the fast rate of densification and neck formation in small amorphous aluminum oxide particles.
AB - Aluminum oxide, both in amorphous and crystalline forms, is a widely used inorganic ceramic material because of its chemical and structural properties. In this work, we synthesized amorphous aluminum oxide nanoparticles using a capacitively coupled nonthermal plasma utilizing trimethylaluminum and oxygen as precursors and studied their crystallization and phase transformation behavior through postsynthetic annealing. The use of two reactor geometries resulted in amorphous aluminum oxide nanoparticles with similar compositions but different sizes. Size tuning of these nanoparticles was achieved by varying the reactor pressure to produce amorphous aluminum oxide nanoparticles ranging from 6 to 22 nm. During postsynthetic annealing, powder samples of amorphous nanoparticles began to crystallize at 800 °C, forming crystalline θ and γphase alumina. Their phase transformation behavior was found to be size-dependent in that powders of small 6 nm amorphous particles transformed to form phase-pure α-Al2O3 at 1100 °C, while powders of large 11 nm particles remained in the θ and γphases. This phenomenon is attributed to the fast rate of densification and neck formation in small amorphous aluminum oxide particles.
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U2 - 10.1021/acsomega.0c03353
DO - 10.1021/acsomega.0c03353
M3 - Article
C2 - 33015493
AN - SCOPUS:85092590820
SN - 2470-1343
VL - 5
SP - 24754
EP - 24761
JO - ACS Omega
JF - ACS Omega
IS - 38
ER -