Brownian Diffusion of Nanoparticles in a Liquid and a “Laser Mill”

A description is given of the operating principle of the so-called “laser mill” making it possible to obtain assemblies of virtually monodisperse spherical metal nanoparticles from a colloidal solution of nanoparticles of various size. A laser mill occurs as a result of exposure of such a solution to a powerful pulse-periodic laser radiation, with the characteristic dimension of the forming monodisperse nanoparticles being much smaller than the laser radiation wavelength.