Study of Graphene-Assisted 46.9nm Laser-Induced Self-Forming Nanoparticles

In this paper, we report the irradiation of a glass substrate with an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) laser at a wavelength of 46.9 nm, facilitated by a single layer graphene film. This process results in the formation of dense nanoparticles within the ablated region. The composition of the nanoparticles was characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), revealing that they consist primarily of silicon, oxygen, and carbon. During this characterization, Ar+ sputtering was applied to remove polluting carbon in the surface, but this process may alter the morphology of nanoparticles. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was employed to observe the morphology of nanoparticles before and after XPS characterization, indicating that nanoparticles may be grown from the inside of the molten glass by nucleation process under the action of surface tension.