Interrogating Gas-Borne Nanoparticles Using Laser-Based Diagnostics And Bayesian Data Fusion

We demonstrate how the evaporation properties of gas-borne nanoscale materials, here liquid silicon and germanium nanoparticles, can be obtained through a novel combination of in situ time-resolved laser-induced incandescence (TiRe-LII) and phase-selective laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (PS-LIBS) based on Bayesian data fusion. This approach reduces the uncertainty in the parameters describing evaporation and condensation by more than a factor of 2 compared to the conventional path and has the capability to provide much needed particle-size-dependent information on nanomaterial phase transitions at high temperature. The inferred parameters are generally consistent with those repeated in the literature but with reduced uncertainty and an extended temperature range.