Solvothermal synthesis of nanocrystalline zinc oxide doped with Mn2+, Ni2+, Co2+ and Cr3+ ions

ZnO nanopowders doped with Mn²⁺, Ni²⁺, Co²⁺ and Cr³⁺ ions have been synthesised for the first time using a solvothermal reaction with microwave heating. The nanopowders were produced from a solution of zinc acetate and manganese (II), chromium (III), nickel (II) and cobalt (II) acetates, using ethylene glycol as a solvent. The content of Ni²⁺, Co²⁺ and Cr³⁺ ions in the solution and in the solid phase were close to each other up to 5 mol%. The doping level of Mn²⁺ ions in the solid is about 50% of that in the solution. No phases or compounds other than ZnO were detected by X-ray diffraction with Mn²⁺, Co²⁺ and Ni²⁺ doping. With Cr³⁺ ions a small amount of chromium oxide was found. None of the powders displayed any luminescence after doping. The Mn²⁺-doped powder displayed a paramagnetic behaviour. ESR and magnetisation investigations have revealed that no clustering of Mn²⁺ ions occurred up to a doping level of 3.9 mol%. The average grain size of powders doped with Ni²⁺, Cr³⁺, Co²⁺ and Mn²⁺ for a 10 mol% ion content in the solution was about 20 nm and the grain size dispersion 30%. With increasing dopant content the grain size decreased. It appears that the solvothermal process employed allows relatively high doping levels of the transition metal ions to be achieved without any dopant clustering or oxide precipitation.     

Optical characterization of eu-doped and undoped gd(2)o(3) nanoparticles synthesized by the hydrogen flame pyrolysis method

Rare-earth-doped nanoparticles are promising materials for fluorescent labeling, as they are characterized by a high Stokes shift, narrow emission spectra, long lifetimes, minimized photobleaching, and low toxicity. We examined the structural and optical properties of europium-doped gadolinium oxide nanoparticles synthesized by the flame pyrolysis method, with specific emphasis on full spectral characterization and fluorescence kinetics. The emission-excitation characterization revealed the presence of predominantly monoclinic but also highly luminescent cubic phases with a prominent oxygen-to-europium charge-transfer band in the 230-260 nm range. A broad emission band in the visible region, corresponding to a similar band in undoped Gd(2)O(3), related to the matrix surface defects, was observed in time-gated spectroscopy of doped nanopowders. All of the examined nanopowders showed very short decay components, on the order of 2 ns, and much longer millisecond decay times characteristic of lanthanide ions. At intermediate times, on the order of 20-100 ns, a complex behavior of the decay was observed, indicative of progressive energy transfer to the lanthanide ion, which varied with different intrashell transitions. Structural characterization data by means of XRD measurements allowed for unambiguous determination of the Eu:Gd(2)O(3) crystallographic structure and cell dimensions to be consistent with a predominantly monoclinic phase.