Synthesis and characterization of erbium doped silica nanoparticles by sol-gel

Synthesis and characterization of erbium doped silica nanoparticles by sol-gel
1

I. S. Polido¹ , , S. N. M. Mestanza1*, A. O. Ribeiro1
Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Santo André, SP, Brazil

Today the production of light emitting devices based on silicon, due to their potential technological applications have been studied, as well as its processing, which is being improved so as to make it simpler. [1]
In this work is reported the study about the synthesis of erbium doped silica nanoparticles
(NPs), and the analyzes of the interference of some process variables, like annealing time and temperature and erbium concentration, in order to make them more efficient, with the emission centered around 1.55mm, and with the smallest width at half height possible.
The NPs are synthesized in acidic media, through the sol -gel method at room temperature, requiring only a high temperature for annealing
Characterizations such as FTIR spectroscopy, zeta pote ntial and X-ray diffraction (XRD) of samples produced with varying synthesis will be presented, as well as its relevance and interference in NPs formed.
Figure 1 shows the sol-gel synthesis process and in Figure 2 can be observed the Raman spectroscopy characterizations, (characteristics: maximum exposed time: 20 minutes, excitation line: 488nm - argon laser), where the peak located at 559.29cm -1, characteristic of rare earth, like erbium, just appears when the sample were exposed longer, and in the curves
(b) and (c), samples who were exposed faster, the peaks are just the characteristics from the crystalline silica matrix.[2]

Keywords: Erbium, doped, nano particles, sol-gel.
Work supported by UFABC
[1] Enrichi, F. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1130, 262 (2008)
[2] Frank L. Galeener. Journal of Non-Cristalline Solids 71, 373 (1985)
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