Synthesis of silver hollow nanoparticles and observation of photoluminescence emission properties

Preparation of hollow silver nanoparticles (HSNs) along-with solid silver nanoparticles are reported by Nd:YAG laser ablation of solid silver target immersed in water medium with a laser ablation time (LAT) duration of 50 min and with the incident laser fluence of 151 J/cm2. It is found that only solid silver nanoparticles are produced when the experiment is carried out with smaller values of LAT duration. The synthesized samples are characterized by using transmission electron microscopy and UV–Visible absorption spectroscopy. The UV–Visible absorption spectra of the samples show sharp absorptions in the ultraviolet and in visible regions due to interband transition and surface plasmon resonance oscillations in Ag nanoparticles, respectively. It is found that all samples exhibit photoluminescence (PL) emission, at room temperature, in the UV–Visible region peaked at ∼346 nm, due to the recombination of electrons with holes from sp conduction band to d band of Ag. The sample containing HSNs exhibits strong PL emission and the value of peak PL emission intensity is enhanced by the factor of 2.4 in comparison to that obtained from the sample synthesized with LAT duration of 20 min. The synthesized HSNs may find applications in catalysis and in chemical sensing.