Sol-gel derived structures for optical design and photocatalytic application

2012 
Graphical abstractScanning electron micrographs of (a and b) plane view of porous anodic alumina films grown on silicon: (a) without xerogel, (b) 7 xerogel layers of 30%Tb2O3+70%Al2O3 after annealing at 1000?C for 30min, (c) room-temperature luminescence under X-rays (radioluminescence) of this structure obtained with Cu Kα radiation energy 8.86ke V, Ia=15mA with typical luminescence bands related to trivalent terbium.Display Omitted In this work, we synthesised xerogels embedded in honeycomb porous anodic alumina films of 1-150µm thickness, with pore diameters of 40-180nm and cell sizes of 120-250nm, and investigated their luminescence and photocatalytic properties. Sols with compositions corresponding to alumina, garnet, willemite and titania in porous anodic alumina films were generated. It addition to the photoluminescence properties reported previously, the structures comprising titania xerogels in porous anodic alumina reveal efficient photocatalytic activity resulting in decomposition of an organic dye in an aqueous medium. Development of the xerogel/porous anodic alumina structure towards a matrix X-ray converter is discussed. Terbium luminescence under X-ray excitation, with the most intensive emission band at 542nm, is observed for the first time under excitation with X-rays and cathode rays for a matrix convertor consisting of a sequence of Tb-doped alumina xerogel layers confined in porous anodic alumina of 1µm thickness grown on a silicon substrate.
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