Alternate method of source preparation for alpha spectrometry: no electrodeposition, no hydrofluoric acid: An alternative method of preparing an actinide alpha count source has been developed instead of electrodeposition or lanthanide fluoride micro-precipitation. The process avoids the use of harmful hydrofluoric acid by micro-precipitation of lanthanide hydroxide. It provides a faster, simpler and safer method of preparing the actinide alpha count source in routine production laboratories, handling many samples per day.

Effect of hydrofluoric acid treatment on electroless deposition of Au cluster: By changing the morphology of the gold nanoparticles (AuNP) deposited on the (100) silicon wafer by simple immersion in a solution containing a metal salt and hydrofluoric acid (HF) before and after the deposition by HF treatment. The gold clusters are characterized by the presence of flat regions and quasi-spherical particles, respectively, consistent with the layer-by-layer or island growth pattern. The cleaning process, including the immersion of HF prior to deposition, affects the predominantly gold structure. Immersion 10 seconds after the existence of tens of nanometers long flat area. Three-dimensional (3D) clusters were formed after a 4 minute cleaning process, which resulted in a large number of spherical particles having a diameter of 15 nm and a small percentage residual square layer of several nanometers in length. After deposition, the samples were also treated with HF, and as revealed by the TEM and AFM analyzes, we found a general thickening of the flat areas. This result is in contrast to the coalescence observed in similar experiments with Ag. It is suggested that the HF dissolve the silicon oxide layer formed on the top of the thin flat cluster and promote the rearrangement of partial atoms of the layered gold atoms due to the reduction of the surface energy. X-ray diffraction studies show that the crystal orientation of the flat region changes partially in the loss of its initial heteroepitaxial relationship with the substrate. The post-deposition HF treatment for almost 70 seconds had almost the same effect as the long-time, high-temperature annealing. The methods provided herein may be useful to alter the spectral response of a nanoparticle array and improve the conversion efficiency of a hybrid photovoltaic device.