In this seminar, Yves Huttel will present the gas phase synthesis of nanoparticles from a general point of view including historical aspects, main characteristics and examples of nanoparticles generated with this technique¹.

After this introduction, Yves will present some recent studies performed using the gas aggregation sources (GAS). He will focus on the proposed applications and challenges that the technique is facing in material science and nanotechnology. In particular he will discuss the possible reasons why the GAS has not penetrated yet the industrial sector although their use for several applications has been proposed.

We will explore some of the issues of the GAS that may explain why they are not implemented in industrial processes as the limitation of the yield of nanoparticles and the short time stability. Possible solutions to overcome these limitations will be presented like the use of a Full Face Erosion magnetron and the injection of controlled doses of gas impurities². You will see that stable and high fluxes of nanoparticles open the route to real applications.

¹ Gas Phase Synthesis of Nanoparticles, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, 2017.
² Y Huttel et al., MRS Communications 8, 947 (2018).

Yves Huttel received his PhD from the University of Paris-Sud, Orsay, France. After his degree he worked at the Synchrotron LURE, France, at the University of Paris-Sud, France, and at the ICMM-CSIC, Spain. He was also a postdoctoral researcher at the Synchrotron of Daresbury Laboratory, UK, before returning to the CSIC at the IMM. He joined the Surfaces, Coatings and Molecular Astrophysics Department at the ICMM, that belongs to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain, with a Ramón y Cajal Fellowship. Since 2007, he has been working at the ICMM as a permanent scientist and leads the Low-Dimensional Advanced Materials Group. His research focuses on low-dimensional systems including surfaces, interfaces and nanoparticles, as well as XMCD, XPS and nanomagnetism.