Abstract
Controlling the structural organization and crystallinity of functional oxides is key to enhancing their performance in technological applications. In this work, we report a strong enhancement of the structural organization and crystallinity of Bi2WO6 samples synthetized by a microwave-assisted hydrothermal method after exposing them to femtosecond laser irradiation. X-ray diffraction, UV-vis and Raman spectroscopies, photoluminescence emissions, energy dispersive spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy were employed to characterize the as-synthetized samples. To complement and rationalize the experimental results, first-principles calculations were employed to study the effects of femtosecond laser irradiation. Structural and electronic effects induced by femtosecond laser irradiation enhance the long-range crystallinity while decreasing the free carrier density, as it takes place in the amorphous and liquid states. These effects can be considered a clear cut case of surface-enhanced Raman scattering.
Highlights
Controlling the structural organization and crystallinity of functional oxides is key to enhancing their performance in technological applications
An analysis of the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the most intense peak of the X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns related to the (131) plane was performed to understand the degree of order/disorder of the samples
The BWO and irradiated Bi2WO6 (i-BWO) samples had an FWHM of ~1.24° and 0.53°, respectively. This result indicates an increase in the long-range order for the i-BWO sample, which is in agreement with the results of Raman, UV-vis and PL, as will be discussed
Summary
Controlling the structural organization and crystallinity of functional oxides is key to enhancing their performance in technological applications. Structural and electronic effects induced by femtosecond laser irradiation enhance the long-range crystallinity while decreasing the free carrier density, as it takes place in the amorphous and liquid states. Bi2WO6 (BWO), is an important n-type semiconductor with a narrowband gap energy (Egap) of 2.8 eV that allows efficient absorption of visible light (λ > 400 nm) and has been widely studied due to its wide range of properties, such as ferroelectricity, piezoelectricity, pyroelectricity, nonlinear dielectric susceptibility, and photoluminescent emissions[1,2]. Fs-laser-induced crystallization in glasses[65], aspirin[66] and many different kinds of films such as Si67–70, Ti71, Ge72, and diamond[73], among others[74,75,76,77,78,79], has been demonstrated[80]
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