The ZnO nanocrystals in the SiO2 matrix can be identified by the

The ZnO nanocrystals in the SiO2 matrix can be identified by the presence of crystal planes which are indicated by white circles. The dark contrast indicates the presence of ZnO clusters. From the TEM pictures in Figure 2a,b,c,d,e, we EPZ004777 price obtained the average sizes of the ZnO-NCs and their standard deviations for various RTP annealing temperatures, presented in Table 1. We can verify that the atomic spacing found

by the TEM images is indeed that of the ZnO crystals. We see that the average sizes and the standard deviations decrease with increasing temperature. The decrease of the average sizes of ZnO-NCs with increasing annealing temperature is presumably because of the formation of Zn2SiO4 at the ZnO and SiO2 interfaces [6]. The reduction of the corresponding standard deviation indicates that the average sizes become more uniform with increasing temperature. Figure 2 TEM pictures GSK1838705A datasheet of samples annealed in RTP for 1 min in O 2 atmosphere. (a) 450°C, (b) 500°C, (c) 550°C, (d) 600°C, and (e) 700°C. Table 1 Average sizes and corresponding standard deviations of the ZnO-NCs for various annealing temperatures Temperature (°C) Average size (nm) Standard deviation (nm) 450 4.83 1.51 500 4.22 1.60 550 4.14 1.12 600 3.91 0.85 700 3.13 0.48 Photoluminescence

of ZnO-NCs in SiO2 at various annealing temperatures The emission from the ZnO-NCs in the SiO2 matrix at various RTP annealing temperatures was MI-503 cell line investigated using PL with a 325-nm He-Cd continuous excitation laser. Emission was sent to

a 50-cm focal length spectrometer coupled to a Peltier-cooled G protein-coupled receptor kinase CCD camera at -85°C. The PL spectra are shown in Figure 3a for various RTP annealing temperatures. As shown in Figure 3b for the most representative spectrum, the measured PL can be perfectly accounted for using two main contributions, one in the UV-blue range and the other one in the visible range. The UV-blue emission is composed of three Gaussian peaks centered at 360, 378, and 396 nm. The visible emission is composed of four Gaussian peaks centered at 417, 450, 500, and 575 nm. The photoluminescence from our SiO2 matrix alone was measured beforehand and was found to be negligible as no emission could be detected under our experimental conditions. To further confirm the consistency of the emissions, the same analysis has been performed for all spectra, keeping the fitting parameters the same except for the peak amplitude, i.e., fixed center wavelengths and full width at half maxima were used for all spectra. Figure 3c shows the evolution of the area of each Gaussian peak as a function of the RTP temperature, along with the evolution of the ZnO-NC average volume. The average ZnO-NC volume is determined using the average size of the ZnO-NC given in Table 1 and by assuming that the ZnO-NCs have a spherical shape.

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