Seeded growth of titania colloids with refractive index tunability and fluorophore-free luminescence

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Ahmet Faik Demirörs - (Author)
  • Anita Jannasch - (Author)
  • Peter D.J. Van Oostrum - (Author)
  • Erik Schäffer - , TUD Dresden University of Technology (Author)
  • Arnout Imhof - (Author)
  • Alfons Van Blaaderen - (Author)

Abstract

Titania is an important material in modern materials science, chemistry, and physics because of its special catalytic, electric, and optical properties. Here, we describe a novel method to synthesize colloidal particles with a crystalline titania, anatase core and an amorphous titania-shell structure. We demonstrate seeded growth of titania onto titania particles with accurate particle size tunability. The monodispersity is improved to such an extent so that colloidal crystallization of the grown microspheres becomes feasible. Furthermore, seeded growth provides separate manipulation of the core and shell. We tuned the refractive index of the amorphous shell between 1.55 and 2.3. In addition, the particles show luminescence when trace amounts of aminopropyl-triethoxysilane are incorporated into the titania matrix and are calcined at 450 °C. Our novel colloids may be useful for optical materials and technologies such as photonic crystals and optical trapping.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1626-1634
Number of pages9
JournalLangmuir
Volume27
Issue number5
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2011
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

External IDs

PubMed 21218840