Luís M. Fortes

High quality factor Er-doped Fabry?Perot microcavities by sol?gel processing

An optimized sol–gel process was developed to fabricate 1D photonic bandgap structures. Several erbium-doped Fabry–Perot microcavities were prepared and characterized. The thickest sample contained two Bragg mirrors, each having 12 distributed Bragg reflector periods of alternating silicate glass and titania layers. The total thickness of this sample reached ~12 µm. The Er3+ photoluminescence spectra at 1.5 µm were measured for the microcavities. A quality factor of 250 and an Er3+ photoluminescence enhancement of 96 times at 1.5 µm have been reached. The sol–gel processing details, the crystallization of the titania films and the refractive index of the deposited materials are discussed in detail. The simulated optical spectra of the microcavities were found to agree well with the actually measured curves. These results demonstrate that the present sol–gel processing technique is of potential interest for low cost fabrication of 1D photonic bandgap devices.

Preparation and Chemical Characterization of Eco-friendly ORMOSIL Nanoparticles of Potential Application in DNA Gene Therapy

One focus in nanotechnology is the development and use of nonviral vectors for safe and efficient gene delivery. Inorganic and organically modified silica nanoparticles are chemical and biologically inert, optically transparent and can be doped with imaging agents and/or functionalized to promote its conjugation with different therapeutic molecules. Silica/ORMOSIL nanoparticles can be engineered to improve diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of diseases. A combination of diagnosis devices and therapeutics (theranostics) would be beneficial for patients. In this work, ORMOSIL nanoparticles as non-viral vectors for gene delivery were prepared via a modified Stober sol-gel process directly with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), methyltriethoxysilane (MTES), vinyltrimethoxysilane (VTES), N 1 - (3-(trimethoxysilyl)-propyl)diethylenetriamine (DETA), and tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) as precursors. Dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy were used to characterize the ORMOSIL nanospheres. Synthesis has been optimized and monodisperse spherical nanoparticles with desired size have been obtained. Nanoparticle-DNA com- plexes were successfully obtained at different ratios (nanoparticle/pDNA) and confirmed by agarose gel electrophoresis and ethidium bromide exclusion test.