The effect of laser pulsewidth on the selenium nanoparticles mass yield

High-throughput synthesis of selenium (Se) nanoparticles in the form of colloidal solutions was carried out by 1030 nm laser ablation of a bulk Se target in deionized water and isopropyl alcohol by laser pulses of variable pulse widths (0.3-8.6 ps). The extinction coefficient of the colloidal solutions exhibits an overall decreasing trend with the increase of the laser pulse width in deionized water, also demonstrating a local minimum at 2-4 ps. This can be explained by the growing ablation thresholds, related to the bigger impact of thermal processes during the transition from femto- to picosecond temporal stages.