Synthesis and characterization of Eu, Ti @ ZnO organosols and nanocrystalline c-ZnTiO thin films aiming at high transparency and luminescence.

By exploiting colloidal properties, such as transparency, rheology and versatile chemistry, we propose to synthesize new photonic nanomaterials based on colloidal solutions and thin films. This contribution highlights our efforts to elaborate and to characterize nanostructures based on the ZnO-TiO system. Using a recently developed sol-gel route to synthesize new Ti@ZnO organosols, we were able to prepare, at relatively low temperature (400 °C) and short annealing time (15 min), highly transparent, luminescent, nanocrystalline Eu doped c-ZnTiO thin films. The organosols and thin films were characterized with UV-visible-near infrared absorption, ellipsometry, photoluminescence spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering, x-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy.