High-speed camera analysis for nanoparticles produced by using a pulsed wire-discharge method

We investigated the performance of a high-speed camera and the nanoparticle size distribution to quantify the mechanism of synthesized nanoparticle formation in a pulsed wire discharge (PWD) experiment. The Sn-58Bi alloy wire was 0.5 mm in diameter and 32 mm long; it was prepared in the PWD chamber, and the evaporation explosion process was observed by using a high-speed camera. In order to vary the conditions and analyze the mechanisms of nanoparticle synthesis in the PWD, we changed the pressure of the N2 gas in the chamber from 25 to 75 kPa. To synthesize nanoparticles on a nano-scale, we fixed the charging voltage at 6 kV, and the high-speed camera captured pictures at 22,500 frames per second. The experimental results show that the electronic explosion process at different N2 gas pressures can be characterized by using the explosion’s duration and the explosion’s intensity. The experiments at the lowest pressure exhibited a longer explosion duration and a greater intensity. Also, at low pressure, very small nanoparticles with a good dispersion were produced.