TY - JOUR A2 - Bongiovanni, Giovanni AU - Marques, Thalles M. F. AU - Luz-Lima, Cleanio AU - Sacilloti, Marco AU - Fujisawa, Kazunori AU - Perea-Lopez, Nestor AU - Terrones, Mauricio AU - Silva, Eder Nascimento AU - Ferreira, Odair Pastor AU - Viana, Bartolomeu Cruz PY - 2017 DA - 2017/01/25 TI - Photoluminescence Enhancement of Titanate Nanotubes by Insertion of Rare Earth Ions in Their Interlayer Spaces SP - 3809807 VL - 2017 AB - The optical properties of titanate nanotubes (TiNts) intercalated with rare earths (RE) ions were intensively investigated in this study. To prepare the nanomaterials, sodium titanate nanotubes (Na-TiNts) were submitted to ion exchange reactions with different rare earth elements (RE: Pr3+, Er3+, Nd3+, and Yb3+). To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that these RE-TiNts were synthesized. All samples were characterized by Raman spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Furthermore, the optical properties were examined using photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) and UV-Vis-NIR absorption spectroscopy. The PL intensity (visible range) of the RE-TiNt samples showed a strong dependence when the temperature was decreased down to 20 K. This PL enhancement probably was promoted by electronic modifications in titanate layer band gap and/or interface charge transfers due to RE ions intercalation. SN - 1687-4110 UR - https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/3809807 DO - 10.1155/2017/3809807 JF - Journal of Nanomaterials PB - Hindawi KW - ER -