Cold Plasma in Nano-Matter Synthesis: Basic Principles and Practices

Nanotechnology has matured enough to make inroads into the industry. “Quantum size effects” is the basis of the exotic properties of nanomaterials. The shapes and the size distribution dictate the properties of the nano matter. The demands of the synthesis technique are: to produce nano matter with uniform size repeatable shapes uniform size distribution stability of the nanostructures (reaching thermodynamic equilibrium) reproducibility of the particle sizes and reliability of the process. These demands can be met when the synthesis technique controls the process parameters precisely. Cold plasma techniques possess all the requirements of the needs of nano-material synthesis. Cold plasma an evolving field has been established to be the most powerful tool for microelectronics (deposition and etching) in many areas like health care medicine agriculture food processing etc. When the atoms and molecules come together in the presence of electric and magnetic fields as in plasma-assisted synthesis it has been shown that the nanoparticles are electrically charged leading to better control in size shape pattern and uniformity. Thus plasma-based techniques (either top-down or bottom-up) have been proven most effective in synthesizing nano matter. The electrical charging of nanoparticles plays an important role in nucleation growth kinetics and nano-thermodynamics. Nano matter synthesis and Cold plasma have come a long way over the past four decades and there exists a wealth of information and desired depth of understanding of both fields. The need is felt to compile the fundamentals of cold plasma techniques for nano matter synthesis so that the book serves as a textbook and a reference source for practicing engineers.