Synthesis and luminescence properties of vanadium-doped nanosized zinc oxide aerogel

L. El Mir , J. El Ghoul , S. Alaya (1) , M. Ben Salem , C. Barthou (2) , H. J. Von Bardeleben (2)

1 Laboratoire de Physique des Matérieux et des Nanomatériaux appliquée à l'Environnement
2 INSP - Institut des Nanosciences de Paris

We report the elaboration of vanadium-doped ZnO nanoparticles prepared by a sol-gel processing technique. In our approach, the water for hydrolysis was slowly released by esterification reaction followed by a supercritical drying in ethyl alcohol. Vanadium doping concentration of 10 at% has been investigated. The obtained nanopowder was characterised by various techniques such as particle size analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescence (PL). In the as-prepared state, the powder with an average particle size of 25 nm presents a strong luminescence band in the visible range after thermal treatment at 500 degrees C in air. The energy position of the obtained PL band depends on the wavelength excitation and presents a blue shift with measurement temperature increase. Different possible attributions of this emission band will be discussed. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Mots clés: zinc oxide; nanoparticles; photoluminescence; sol-gel; optical materials

Domaines: Matière Condensée [cond-mat]

L. El Mir, J. El Ghoul, S. Alaya, M. Ben Salem, C. Barthou, et al.. Synthesis and luminescence properties of vanadium-doped nanosized zinc oxide aerogel. Physica B: Condensed Matter, 2008, 403 (10-11), pp.1770-1774. ⟨10.1016/j.physb.2007.10.069⟩. ⟨hal-01281486⟩