The oxides of rare-earth elements (rare-earth sesquioxide: RE2O3) are known for their optical and dielectric properties. Europium oxide is known for characteristic red luminescence and gadolinium oxide has excellent insulating properties (band gap: 5.5 eV). Development of ultra-small nanocrystals (sub-3 nm diameter) of these rare-earth oxides and investigation of their optical and dielectric properties are explored in this dissertation. A new synthesis process was developed successfully to produce ultra-small colloidal nanocrystals, which were capped with oleic acid. Europium oxide nanocrystals exhibited a new luminescence peak because of the occupation of Eu3+ ions in a surface site. The nanocrystals were assembled into films from their suspensions in hexane by electrophoretic deposition. Films of europium oxide were highly transparent in visible spectral region because of minimal scattering losses within the films and exhibited characteristic red luminescence. Gadolinium oxide nanocrystals exhibited charge-storage properties when integrated in a metal-insulator-semiconductor structure. Layered heterostructures of carbon nanotubes and nanocrystals were fabricated and their charge-storage properties were studied.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-04162010-161540 |
| Date | 16 April 2010 |
| Creators | Mahajan, Sameer Vinayak |
| Contributors | James H. Dickerson, Richard Haglund, Sandra Rosenthal, Kalman Varga, Greg Walker |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-04162010-161540/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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