Yizhu Xie

Temperature effect on electrospinning of nanobelts: the case of hafnium oxide

Electrospinning is a convenient and versatile method for fabricating different kinds of one-dimensional nanostructures such as nanofibres, nanotubes and nanobelts. Environmental parameters have a great influence on the electrospinning nanostructure. Here we report a new method to fabricate hafnium oxide (HfO(2)) nanobelts. HfO(2) nanobelts were prepared by electrospinning a sol-gel solution with the implementation of heating and subsequent calcination treatment. We investigate the temperature dependence of the products by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), and energy-dispersive x-ray (EDX) spectroscopy. The heating temperature of spinning ambient is found to be crucial to the formation of HfO(2) nanobelts. By tuning the temperature, the morphological transformation of HfO(2) from nanowires to nanobelts was achieved. It was found that the rapid evaporation of solvent played an important role in the formation process of HfO(2) nanobelts. It is shown that nanobelts can only be obtained with the temperature higher than 50 °C and they are in the high quality monoclinic phase. A possible growth mechanism of the nanobelts based on phase separation is proposed. The enhanced photoluminescence (PL) of HfO(2):Eu(3+) nanobelts is also illustrated.

Oxygen defects-modulated green photoluminescence of Tb-doped ZrO2 nanofibers

The photoluminescence properties of Tb-doped ZrO2 nanofibers synthesized by electrospinning technique were investigated. The intensity of the green light emission could be controlled by oxygen vacancy concentration, which could be enhanced by argon gas annealing or diminished by oxygen annealing. An energy transfer mechanism is proposed that the oxygen vacancies in the host acted as effective sensitizers for the adjacent Tb ions. The oxygen vacancies transferred excitation energy to the adjacent Tb ions sites and thus greatly enhanced the green emission. These results are of great importance for the future optoelectronic applications of Tb-doped ZrO2 nanofibers.

Synthesis and White-Light Emission of ZnO/HfO2: Eu Nanocables

ZnO/HfO2:Eu nanocables were prepared by radio frequency sputtering with electrospun ZnO nanofibers as cores. The well-crystallized ZnO/HfO2:Eu nanocables showed a uniform intact core–shell structure, which consisted of a hexagonal ZnO core and a monoclinic HfO2 shell. The photoluminescence properties of the samples were characterized. A white-light band emission consisted of blue, green, and red emissions was observed in the nanocables. The blue and green emissions can be attributed to the zinc vacancy and oxygen vacancy defects in ZnO/HfO2:Eu nanocables, and the yellow–red emissions are derived from the inner 4f-shell transitions of corresponding Eu3+ ions in HfO2:Eu shells. Enhanced white-light emission was observed in the nanocables. The enhancement of the emission is ascribed to the structural changes after coaxial synthesis.

Photoluminescence of rare earth3+ doped uniaxially aligned HfO2 nanotubes prepared by sputtering with electrospun polyvinylpyrolidone nanofibers as templates

Rare earth (RE) ions (Eu3+,Tb3+) doped uniaxially aligned HfO2 nanotubes were prepared by radio frequency sputtering with electrospun polyvinylpyrolidone (PVP) nanofiber templates. The as-sputtered samples were annealed at different temperatures (500–1000 °C) in O2 ambient in order to remove their PVP cores and make the HfO2 shells well crystallized. Morphologies and crystal configuration of the samples were investigated by optical microscope, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, x–ray diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy. The nanotubes have uniform intact structure with an average diameter of 200 nm and a wall thickness of about 25 nm. Photoluminescence (PL) properties of the RE doped nanotubes have been studied in detail. The emission peaks of the aligned HfO2:Eu and HfO2:Tb nanotubes could correspond to the D50→F7J (J=0–2) transitions of Eu3+ and the D54→F7J (J=3–6) transitions of Tb3+, respectively. The PL intensities of the HfO2:RE3+ nanotubes were higher by several orders o...