Synthesis of highly luminescent rare-earth based nanoparticles in natural oils

Gianfranco Carotenuto^a, Angela Longo^a, Enrico Binetti^a

^aInstitute for Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials, National Research Council (CNR-IPCB), Via Sommarive, 14, Trento, 38123, Italy

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics 2015 (HOPV15)

Roma, Italy, 2015 May 11th - 13th

Organizer: Filippo De Angelis

Poster, Enrico Binetti, 433
Publication date: 5th February 2015

Colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) are free-standing nano-sized objects, coated by a layer of organic capping ligands which allows their dispersion in solvents, making easy the manipulation. In addition, organic ligands have the essential role to control the NC surface during all synthesis phases and prevent the occurrence of aggregation phenomena. Presenting intense emission in the visible and IR region of the spectra, semiconductor NCs are of great interest for application in several fields, as optoelectronics, bio-imaging, optical filters, etc... However, colloidal procedures require the use of large amount of solvents and organic compounds, generating a wide amount of wastes to synthesize small amounts of NCs. Here, we focused on the synthesis of colloidal NCs by the “thermal decomposition of organometallic precursor in hot coordinating solvents” using exclusively natural products for each synthetic phase, with the exception for the organometallic NC precursor. In particular, seed oil was used as high-boiling and coordinating solvent and ethanol was used as non-solvent in purification processes. Seed oil is made by a mixture of saturated, mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated carboxylic acid able to coordinate metal atoms and controlling the NC growth. Different rare-earth organometallic complexes (i.e. Gd, Eu, Yb) were investigated in the above mentioned procedure. Synthesized NCs were characterized by XRD, TEM, XPS, UV-vis-IR absorption and emission spectroscopy, which highlighted the formation of NCs characterized by a strong absorption in the UV region of the spectrum and an intense photoluminescence in the visible. Such NCs will be tested for the preparation of transparent and luminescent polymeric nanocomposite material and tested as optical filter for photovoltaic solar cells. Acknowledgements This work has been financially supported by the ENAM project (Rif: 2011-S116-00100).

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