Department of Chemical Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata, Mohanpur, West Bengal, India.
Dalton Trans. 2013 Sep 7;42(33):11981-6. doi: 10.1039/c3dt51506k.
The colloidal growth of ZnO exhibits interesting dynamics, which is generally probed using absorbance measurements. Here, we have shown that the sharp luminescent signals from the Eu(3+) ions act as a potential luminescent spectral probe to follow the growth of ZnO nanostructures. The Eu(3+)-doped ZnO nanocrystals were synthesized by a colloidal method. The asymmetry ratio calculated from the Eu(3+) emission intensity peaks ((5)D0 → (7)F2/(5)D0 → (7)F1) gradually decrease with the increase in the size of the ZnO nanostructures. This is attributed to the increase in the surface related defects as the size of the ZnO nanocrystals is increased. The above result is supported by controlling the growth of the ZnO nanocrystals with capping ligands. The Eu(3+) luminescence intensity hardly is affected upon ligand capping. Additional experiments such as lifetime measurements and photocatalytic activity of ZnO strongly indicate that Eu(3+) can be used as a potential tool to follow the growth of colloidal ZnO nanostructures. We believe the study can be extended to understand the growth mechanism of several other colloidal nanostructures.
氧化锌的胶态生长表现出有趣的动力学行为，通常使用吸光度测量来探测。在这里，我们已经表明，Eu(3+)离子的尖锐发光信号可以作为潜在的发光光谱探针来跟踪 ZnO 纳米结构的生长。Eu(3+)掺杂的 ZnO 纳米晶通过胶体方法合成。从 Eu(3+)发射强度峰（(5)D0 → (7)F2/(5)D0 → (7)F1）计算出的不对称比随着 ZnO 纳米结构尺寸的增加而逐渐减小。这归因于随着 ZnO 纳米晶尺寸的增加，表面相关缺陷的增加。上述结果得到了用封端配体控制 ZnO 纳米晶生长的支持。Eu(3+)发光强度在配体封端后几乎没有受到影响。附加实验，如寿命测量和 ZnO 的光催化活性，强烈表明 Eu(3+)可以用作跟踪胶体 ZnO 纳米结构生长的潜在工具。我们相信，这项研究可以扩展到理解其他几种胶体纳米结构的生长机制。
