Photoluminescence enhancement of titanate nanotubes by insertion of rare earth ions in their interlayer spaces

• Autor(a) principal: Marques, Thalles Moura Fé
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Lima, Cleânio da Luz, Sacilloti, Marco Antonio, Fujisawa, Kazunori, Perea Lopez, Nestor, Terrones, Mauricio, Silva, Eder Nascimento, Ferreira, Odair Pastor, Viana Neto, Bartolomeu Cruz
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC)
• Texto Completo: http://www.repositorio.ufc.br/handle/riufc/40633
• topic: Nanotubos de titanato; Difração de raios-X; Metais de terra rara; Fotoluminescência

The optical properties of titanate nanotubes (TiNts) intercalated with rare earths (RE) ions were intensively investigated in this study. To prepare the nanomaterials, sodium titanate nanotubes (Na-TiNts) were submitted to ion exchange reactions with different rare earth elements (RE: Pr3+, Er3+, Nd3+, and Yb3+). To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that these RE-TiNts were synthesized. All samples were characterized by Raman spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Furthermore, the optical properties were examined using photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) and UV-Vis-NIR absorption spectroscopy. The PL intensity (visible range) of the RE-TiNt samples showed a strong dependence when the temperature was decreased down to 20 K. This PL enhancement probably was promoted by electronic modifications in titanate layer band gap and/or interface charge transfers due to RE ions intercalation.