Rare Earth-Doped Silicon Nanoparticles: Synthesis, Characterization, and Photophysical Studies

9819178本项目旨在系统地研究稀土离子掺入不同大小的离散硅纳米颗粒结构中的影响。该纳米粒子将由二硅烷和稀土前驱体络合物在高温气溶胶反应器中共热解而成。纳米粒子将通过高分辨率和低分辨率光致发光光谱、透射和高分辨率电子显微镜以及紫外和可见光吸收光谱进行表征。这项研究的重点将包括稀土离子Er和Eu作为12至100纳米尺寸范围内的大型稀土掺杂硅纳米颗粒，以及1至4纳米尺寸范围内的小型稀土掺杂硅纳米颗粒。目标包括评估硅基质颗粒大小对稀土中心的光物理性质，特别是能量传递的作用，以及评估大的硅纳米颗粒作为增强稀土离子发光的光腔的可能性。%该项目旨在建立基本的物理和化学性质，包括纳米颗粒的光学和磁性，这些性质不仅强烈地依赖于化学成分，而且还取决于颗粒的大小。从这一纳米科学领域的进展可以预测，基于表现出新的光学、磁学和电学性质的纳米簇的电路和器件将使计算或信息存储单元能够缩小到接近分子尺寸，并将这些单元的功率需求降低到低于当前所需的数量级。

9819178 Coffer This project will aim to study systematically the effects of rare earth ion incorporation into the structure of discrete silicon nanoparticles of varying size. The nanoparticles will be prepared by the co-pyrolysis of disilane and a rare earth precursor complex in a high temperature aerosol reactor. The nanoparticles will be characterized by high- and low-resolution photoluminescence spectroscopy, transmission and high resolution electron microscopy, and ultraviolet and visible absorption spectroscopy. The study will include an emphasis on the rare earth ions erbium and europium as large rare-earth doped silicon nanoparticles in the 12 to 100 nanometer size regime, as well as in the small rare-earth doped silicon nanoparticle 1 to 4 nanometer size regime. The goals include evaluating the role of the silicon host particle size on the photophysical properties of the rare earth center, especially energy transfer, and assessing the possibility of large silicon nanoparticles acting as optical cavities for the enhancement of rare earth ion luminescence.%%%This project aims to establish the fundamental physical and chemical properties, to include optical and magnetic properties of nanoparticles that strongly depend on not only the chemical composition, but also on the size of the particle. From progress in this area of nanosciences it is predicted that circuits and devices based on nanoclusters exhibiting novel optical, magnetic and electronic properties will enable the shrinkage of a computational or information storage unit to near molecular dimensions as well as decrease the power requirements of these units orders of magnitude less than currently needed.