Study of the Physico-Chemical Properties of Sol-Gel (Er, Yb) Doped TiO2 Nanoparticles Prepared with a Novel Protocol

Abstract

This paper describes the systematic preparation of doped and undoped TiO 2 with Er and/or Yb nanoparticles by hydrothermal-assisted sol-gel method using supercritical drying of ethanol followed by systematic calcination steps at 500°C, 800°C and 1000°C for 2/h. The structural study of these powders with XRD reveals that our samples are crystalline with a tetragonal structure and anatase phase, which is well crystallized at 500°C. The annealing at 800°C reveals a transformation of the anatase phase to the rutile phase, which is well crystallized at 1000°C. The XRD analysis clearly indicates that the dopants are incorporated into the TiO 2 network without any phase segregation-taking place in these nanoparticles. The study of the grain sizes has shown that they are nanometric in size of around 8-12 nm and that their sizes decrease with Er and/or Yb doping. The elemental analyses with micro-EDX using SEM confirmed the presence of chemical elements of TiO 2 nanoparticles with expected atomic ratios. The analysis of the SEM images confirmed the XRD observations. In addition, they attest that the nanoparticles are spherical in shape. The optical analysis with excitation at 488 nm shows the presence of three emission bands in the green zone and the red zone. The heat treatment improves the optical, structural and spectroscopic properties and eliminates the contaminations that are due to the preparation conditions.