Antifungal Properties of Pure Silver Films with Nanoparticles Induced by Pulsed-Laser Dewetting Process

Abstract

Silver particles were prepared by dewetting Ag films coated on glass using a fiber laser. The size of the particles was controlled in the range of 92 nm–1.2 μm by adjusting the thickness of the Ag film. The structural properties and surface roughness of the particles were evaluated by means of scanning electron microscopy. In addition, the antifungal activity of the Ag particles was examined using spore suspensions of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides. It is shown that particles with a size of 1.2 μm achieved 100% inhibition of conidia growth of C. gloeosporioides after a contact time of just 5 min. Furthermore, the smaller particles also achieved good antifungal activity given a longer contact time. Similar results were observed for spore germination and pathogenicity tests performed on mango fruit and leaves. Overall, the results confirm that Ag particles have an excellent antifungal effect on C. gloeosporioides.

Silver Nanoparticle Arrays onto Glass Substrates Obtained by Solid-State Thermal Dewetting: A Morphological, Structural and Surface Chemical Study

“…Moreover, and very importantly, in order to ensure the desired control of nanostructures, it is critical to have a thorough understanding of the fundamental microscopic mechanisms that govern the processes used in these approaches [4,28,31,32]. Several techniques have been reported for the production of microand nanoscale metallic particles arrays supported onto a solid substrate, including spray pyrolysis [33,34], sol-gel [35], electroless metal deposition [34], electrodeposition [34], and solid-state dewetting (SSD) [4,25,[36][37][38][39][40].…”

“…The original continuous film breaks apart into numerous particles in the same way as a water layer would on a hydrophobic surface, and this process is known as dewetting [25,28,41,[45][46][47][48]. The SSD process can be induced by thermal annealing [12,26,31,36,38,40,41,49], pulsed laser heating [1,4,39,50], combined thermal annealing and pulsed laser heating [27], ion beam irradiation [51][52][53][54], electron beam irradiation [55], and inductively coupled plasma discharge [56]. Nonetheless, thermal annealing is probably the simplest way to promote dewetting, particularly when working on large areas.…”

Effects of Accumulated Energy on Nanoparticle Formation in Pulsed-Laser Dewetting of AgCu Thin Films

“…Among the various metallic materials in common use, silver (Ag) and copper (Cu) have been extensively explored and have found widespread use in the antibacterial [7,8], photovoltaic [9,10], optoelectronic [9,11], and electrocatalysis [12] fields. In many such applications, it is desirable to pattern metallic nanoparticles on the substrate surface.…”

Advances in Surface Modification of the Materials

“…The antifungal properties of pure silver films with nanoparticles induced by the Pulsed-Laser Dewetting process were investigated in [18]. Silver particles were prepared by dewetting Ag films coated on glass using a fiber laser.…”