Controlling the optical creation of gold nanoparticles in a PVA matrix by direct laser writing

We report about the study on the physical features of gold nano-particles (GNPs) created by 2-photons photo-reduction Direct Laser Writing in a Poly-Vinyl Alcohol (PVA) matrix doped with HAuCl4. We drop cast a film of the PVA + HAuCl4 onto a glass substrate, in which we create 1D gratings made by stripes of GNPs with a single laser sweep. We show that the stripe width increases with the laser power and the exposure time. We also analyse the influence of the exposure time over the created nano-particles size distribution and density and we show that by suitably adjusting the exposure time it is possible to maximize the frequency of a given diameter. By comparing the experimental results with a polymerization "voxel" model, we are able to evaluate the effective cross section for 2-photons absorption of our material.