Aerosol Science: Technology and Applications

Chapter 12

Nanostructured Material Synthesis in the Gas Phase

Peter V. Pikhitsa and Mansoo Choi

Division of WCU Multiscale Mechanical Design, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, South Korea

12.1 Introduction

Nanostructured materials made of assembled nanoparticles can manifest various properties unattainable in usual homogeneous bulk materials. Electron energy levels, plasmonic states, magnetic states, and so on can be very specific to individual nanoparticles. When nanoparticles are assembled into a material, they may constitute artificial bulk materials with interesting properties. First among these are transport and transmission properties, whether heat transfer, electromagnetic waves, spin waves, or electric charge transportation. The transport properties can be very sensitive to the environment, due to systems of interfaces and grain boundaries, especially for nanoparticles arranged in low-dimensional chain-like structures. Other properties include thermodynamical properties: the capacity for charges, as in Li batteries; superparamagnetic properties; the effects of radiation transformation, as in a solar cell; catalytic activity; and so on.

Two technical questions then arise: how to create nanoparticles with the desired properties and how to arrange them into useful structures. A vast number of methods of obtaining nanostructured materials have been developed, and sometimes the two tasks can be solved in a one-step synthesis process, ...