Synthesis of uranium-di-oxide nanoparticles by pulsed laser ablation in ethanol and their characterisation

• UO2 nano-particles were generated by Pulsed laser ablation in ethanol.
• Particle size was found to be dependent on laser fluence values.
• The phase of the particles was found to be FCC.
• The particles showed higher absorption in UV wave length.

The importance of actinide based nano-structures is well known in the area of biology, nuclear medicine and nuclear industry. Pulsed laser ablation in liquid is recognised as an attractive technique for production of nano-structures of different metals and metal oxides with high purity. In this paper, we report synthesis of uranium-di-oxide nanoparticles by pulsed laser ablation in ethanol. The second harmonic emission of an electro-optically Q-switched nano-second Nd-YAG laser was used as the coherent source here. The structural and optical properties of the fabricated uranium-di-oxide nanoparticles were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive analysis of X-rays (EDX) and UV–Vis–NIR spectrophotometry. The mean size of the particles was found to be dependent on the laser ablation parameters in particular with laser fluence. XRD and TEM analysis confirmed the phase of the synthesised material as pure crystalline uranium-di-oxide with face centred cubic structure. UV–Vis–NIR absorption spectra of the colloidal solution revealed high absorption in the UV regime.