Thermal Accommodation Coefficients for Time-Resolved Laser-Induced Incandescence Sizing of Metal Nanoparticles in Monotomic Gases

There is recent interest in adapting time-resolved laser-induced incandescence (TiRE-LII) to measure aerosolized metal nanoparticles, which requires knowledge of the thermal accommodation coefficient between the gas and the laser-energized particle. This paper presents accommodation coefficients for various metal particles in monatomic gases derived using molecular dynamics (MD). A comparative analysis of different gas/metal systems reveals a fundamental relationship between the thermal accommodation coefficient and the potential well depth. Finally, MD derived accommodation coefficients are used, for the first time, to recover particle sizes from TiRe-LII measurements made on molybdenum nanoparticles in helium and argon atmospheres.