Laser-Assisted Synthesis of Composite Nanoparticles of Perovskite BaTiO3 in Aqueous Solutions and Their Optical Properties.

Ekaterina V Barmina,Igor I Vlasov,George Kourmoulakis,Oleg S Kudryavtsev,Georgy A Shafeev,Yurii L Kalachev,Evangelos Skoulas,Valeriy V Voronov,Bulat A Mukhametyanov,Emmanuel Stratakis,Oleg V Uvarov

doi:10.3390/ma13184086

Abstract

Experimental results are presented on laser-assisted synthesis of composite nanoparticles of perovskite BaTiO3 with gold nanoparticles using the technique of laser ablation in water and aqueous solution of hydrogen peroxide. Nanoparticles of BaTiO3 are generated by near IR laser radiation with pulse durations of 170 fs, 1 ps, and 200 ns. Nanoparticles of barium titanate BaTiO3 (BTO) have tetragonal structure for all used pulse durations. Two ways of synthesis are tested. In the first one a gold target is ablated in the colloidal solution of BaTiO3 nanoparticles. The second way consists of laser exposure of the mixture of colloidal solutions of nanoparticles of BaTiO3 and Au. Synthesized composite nanoparticles are characterized by optical spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-Ray diffractometry, and Transmission Electron Microscopy. Composite BaTiO3-Au nanoparticles have the absorption band in the visible range of spectrum and demonstrate plasmonic luminescence.

Highlights

Hydrogen is an attractive alternative to hydrocarbon fuels due to its low environmental impact.One of the possible ways to produce hydrogen is photocatalytic water splitting under sunlight irradiation
We present our results on laser-assisted synthesis of nanocomposites of nanoparticles of inorganic perovskite BTO with Au
BTO NPs generated with 1 picosecond pulses are characterized with stochastic shape that may be due to highly non-equilibrium process of laser ablation that proceeds rather via mechanical damage of the target than its melting

Summary

Introduction

Hydrogen is an attractive alternative to hydrocarbon fuels due to its low environmental impact.One of the possible ways to produce hydrogen is photocatalytic water splitting under sunlight irradiation. Perovskites are promising materials for applications in photocatalytic water splitting and solar cells [3,4,5]. Hybrid organic perovskites can be described by the formula ABX3 , in which A is an organic cation, B is a metal cation (such as Pb), and X is a halogen anion (such as Cl, Br, or I) [7]. Some halogen ions, such as Br or I, lead to absorption of these hybrid perovskites in the visible range of spectrum

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