SYNTHESIS OF ALLOY METAL NANOCLUSTERS IN SILICA GLASS BY SEQUENTIAL ION IMPLANTATION

High fluence low energy negative ion implantation has been used to synthesize embedded metal nanoclusters of Au , Ag and Sb in silica glass. The Au - and Ag -implanted samples showed peaks, corresponding to surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in the optical absorption (OA) spectra, confirming the formation of metallic nanoparticles in the matrix. No SPR peak was observed in case of Sb -implanted samples which is attributed to the absence of pure metallic precipitates which could be detected in the OA spectrum. Low frequency Raman scattering (LFRS) measurements also confirm this. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy has been used to infer about the size distribution of the nanoparticles. Sequential implantations of Au and Ag or Au and Sb have been found to result in SPR peaks at locations in between those for nanoparticles of the constituent atoms, indicating the formation of alloy nanoparticles in the system. In case of the Au + Ag system, Rutherford backscattering spectrometry has been used to infer about the composition of the nanoparticles in terms of the concentrations of the metallic constituents. A direct, one-to-one correspondence between the SPR peak position and composition has been observed.