Ge-doped silica nanoparticles: production and characterisation

Antonino Alessi (1) , M. Fanetti (2) , S. Agnello (3) , Sylvain Girard (1) , G. Buscarino (3) , Diego Di Francesca (1) , Imène Reghioua (1) , M. Messina (3) , Marco Cannas (3) , Layla Martin-Samos (2) , Matjaz Valant (2) , Aziz Boukenter (1) , Youcef Ouerdane (1)

1 LHC - Laboratoire Hubert Curien
2 University of Nova Gorica
3 Università degli studi di Palermo - University of Palermo

Silica nanoparticles were produced from germanosilicate glasses by KrF laser irradiation. The samples were investigated by cathodoluminescence and scanning electron microscopy, providing the presence of nanoparticles with size from tens up to hundreds of nanometers. The emission of the Germanium lone pair center is preserved in the nanoparticles and atomic force microscopy revealed the presence of no spherical particles with a size smaller than ~4 nm. The absorption coefficient enhancement induced by Ge doping is reputed fundamental to facilitate the nanoparticles production. This procedure can be applied to other co-doped silica materials to tune the nanoparticles features.

Domaines: Physique [physics]

Antonino Alessi, M. Fanetti, S. Agnello, Sylvain Girard, G. Buscarino, et al.. Ge-doped silica nanoparticles: production and characterisation . Optical Materials Express, 2016, 6 (7), pp. 2213-2220. ⟨10.1364/OME.6.002213⟩. ⟨hal-01528177⟩