Luminescenza risolta in tempo del non bridging oxygen hole center in silice: proprietà di volume e di superficie

Photoluminescence time decay of surface oxygen deficient centers in un‐doped and Ge‐doped silica

We report a study of the emission decay from the singlet excited state of two fold coordinated Si and Ge centers stabilized on the surface of silica and Ge-doped silica. The PL lifetimes are of the order of nanoseconds and increase on decreasing the temperature. The results suggest that, for the surface centers, the phonon assisted intersystem-crossing process linking the excited states affects the decay rates, is effective down to low temperatures and is distributed because of the inhomogeneity of the defects. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Luminescence properties of nonbridging oxygen hole centers at the silica surface

Abstract Two variants of the surface-nonbridging oxygen hole center, ( Si–O)3Si–O• and ( Si–O)2(H–O)Si–O•, stabilized in porous films of silica nano-particles were investigated by time resolved luminescence excited in the visible and UV spectral range by a tunable laser system. Both defects emit a photoluminescence around 2.0 eV with an excitation spectrum evidencing two maxima at 2.0 and 4.8 eV, this emission decreases by a factor ∼2 on increasing the temperature from 8 up to 290 K. However, the different local structure influences the emission lineshape, the quantum yield and the decay lifetime. Such peculiarities are discussed on the basis of the symmetry properties of these defects.

Phonon Coupling Properties of Non Bridging Oxygen Hole Centers at a Silica Surface Probed by Site-Selective Luminescence Excitation

Luminescence Properties of Non Bridging Oxygen Hole Centers at a Silica Surface

Luminescence of the surface nonbridging oxygen hole center in silica: Spectral and decay properties

We investigated the red luminescence in a porous film of silica nanoparticles, originating from surface nonbridging oxygen hole centers. The excitation spectrum was measured from 1.8 to 8.0 eV by a tunable laser system and a synchrotron radiation source; this spectrum evidences a peak at 2.0 eV, nearly overlapping with the emission, and an ultraviolet broadband with peaks at 4.8 and 6.0 eV. The emission is characterized by a spectrum with two subbands split by 0.07 eV, its decay occurs with lifetime longer than 30 microsec and undergoes a thermal quenching by a factor aboout 2 with increasing temperature from 10 to 290 K. The optical characteristics of surface and bulk centers are discussed…

Visible luminescence of nanosilica: slow and fast contributions

Luminescence activity of surface and interior Ge-oxygen deficient centers in silica

We report a comparative study on the optical activity of surface and interior Ge–oxygen deficient centers in pressed porous and sol–gel Ge-doped silica, respectively. The experimental approach is based on the temperature dependence of the two photoluminescence bands at 4.2 (singlet–singlet emission, S1! S0) and 3.1 eV (triplet–singlet emission, T1! S0), excited within the absorption band at about 5 eV. Our data show that the phonon assisted intersystem crossing process, linking the two excited electronic states, more effective for surface than for interior centers in the temperature range 5–300 K. For both centers, a distribution of the activation energies of the process is found. Based on th…

Time-resolved luminescence of non-bridging oxygen hole centre in silica: Bulk and surface properties

Vibrational properties of the surface-nonbridging oxygen in silica nanoparticles

By studying the site-selective luminescence spectra of oxidized silica nanoparticles we identify the electronic and the vibrational lines associated with the surface nonbridging oxygen, $\ensuremath{\equiv}{\text{Si-O}}^{\ifmmode\bullet\else\textbullet\fi{}}$. This defect emits a zero-phonon line inhomogeneously distributed around 2.0 eV with full width at half maximum of 0.04 eV, weakly coupled with the local ${\text{Si-O}}^{\ifmmode\bullet\else\textbullet\fi{}}$ stretching mode whose frequency is measured to be $920\text{ }{\text{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$. These findings are different from those of the well-characterized defect in the bulk silica thus evidencing structural peculiarities of …