Effect of Damping on Stability of Gold Nanoparticles in a Quadrupole Trap

Abstract

This thesis describes the use of time-varying quadrupole electric fields to trap gold nanospheres. Colloidal particles, 100 nm in diameter are extracted from their solution and injected into the trap via electrospray. The particles’ response is studied at atmosphere as well as in a medium vacuum. A perturbing frequency is introduced alongside the main trapping frequency to allow the particles’ response to resonant frequencies to be studied. Nonlinearities in the particles’ response are discussed.