Formation of polymer nanoparticles by UV pulsed laser ablation of poly (bisphenol A carbonate) in liquid environment

Highlights: • Suspensions of poly(bisphenol A carbonate) nanoparticles of varying size and shape have been produced by nanosecond laser ablation at 266 nm in liquid media. • The different nanoparticle size distributions were related to the thermal conductivity of the liquid. • Viscosity of the liquids seems to influence the development of nanostructures of different morphologies. - Abstract: Suspensions of poly(bisphenol A carbonate) (PBAC) nanoparticles of varying size and shape have been produced by ablation of a PBAC target in liquid media with the fourth harmonic of a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser (wavelength 266 nm, full width at half maximum 4 ns, repetition rate 10 Hz). The polymer target was placed at the bottom of a rotating glass vessel filled with around a 10 mm column of liquid. Laser ablation in water leads to spherical nanoparticles with diameters of several tens of nanometers for fluences close to 1 J/cm². Ablation at lower fluences, around 0.1 J/cm², results in the production of nanoparticles of smaller diameters and also of non-spherical nanoparticles. Additional irradiations at the fluence of 0.1 J/cm² were performed in several liquid media with different properties, in terms of density, viscosity, thermal conductivity, boiling temperature, isothermal compressibility and polarity. The different size distributions observed were related to the thermal conductivity of the systems, while their viscosity seems to be responsible for the development of nanostructures with different morphologies.