3. New oxide-based materials:
Contact person:
Stefania Benedetti
Paola Luches
The activity aims at obtaining oxide-based materials designed for target functionalities through fundamental understanding of their properties. Light absorption properties, transport properties, reducibility, and antioxidant properties of different oxides are studied and optimized via nanostructuring, metal doping, and/or interaction with metal nanoparticles. The study of charge excitations, charge transfer processes and their time dependent evolution via ultrafast spectroscopies is expected to give a novel insight into the material properties and functionalities. Al-doped ZnO films have been shown to have tunable optoelectronic properties depending on the Al-doping concentration and on the additional defect species identified within the compound.
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Hard X-ray Photoelectron Spectra (HAXPES) spectrum of an Al-doped ZnO film and comparison with Density Functional Theory (DFT). It is possible to relate the defect concentration to the oxide stoichiometry and to small lattice distortions.
S. Benedetti, I. Valenti, A. di Bona, G. Vinai, C. Castan-Guerrero, S. Valeri, A. Catellani, A. Ruini, P. Torelli and A. Calzolari, Spectroscopic identification of the chemical interplay between defects and dopants in Al-doped ZnO, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 19, 29364 (2017)
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Metal proximity, spatial confinement and defect distribution largely influence the reducibilityin cerium oxide, property on which most of the applications of the material are based.
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Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy in the Electron Energy Loss (STEM-EELS) maps of the distribution of Ce3+ and Ce4+ ions for mass-selected Cerium nanoparticles prepared using different growth procedures.
M. C. Spadaro, P. Luches, G. Bertoni, V. Grillo, S. Turner, G. Van Tendeloo, S. Valeri, and S. D'Addato Influence of Defect Distribution on the Reducibility of CeO2-x Nanoparticles, Nanotechnology , 27, 425705 (2016)
J. S. PelliCresi, M. C. Spadaro, S. D’Addato, S. Valeri, L. Amidani, F. Boscherini, G. Bertoni, D. Deiana, and P. Luches Contraction, cation oxidation state and size effects in cerium oxide nanoparticles, Nanotechnology , 28, 495702 (2017)
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