In-situ growth of highly monodisperse ITO nanoparticles regulated by mesoporous silica glasses

Abstract In this work, we firstly introduce a facile method to synthesize bulk silica glass contained indium tin oxide nanoparticles (ITO NPs). Water solution with InCl 3 and SnCl 4 was mixed and dipped into the mesoporous silica glass (MSG) followed by an in-situ growth of ITO NPs under 1000 °C heat treatment. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) show that the ITO NPs are highly monodisperse and crystalline in the silica glass with size around 20–30 nm. The size and distribution of ITO NPs can be regulated by the mesopores of mesoporous silica glass (MSG) effectively. The absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectra exhibit an optical band gap and a PL emission of the ITO NPs doped silica glass at 3.12 eV and 560 nm, respectively. Results indicate that this kind of composite material has potential applications for optical nonlinearity, plasmonic formation, and sensing in the future.