Collective plasmonic resonances enhance the photoluminescence of rare-earth nanocrystal films processed by ultrafast annealing

Herein, we demonstrate that rapid thermal annealing allows achieving close-to-one photoluminescence quantum yield while preserving the transparency of rare-earth nanocrystal films, which further enables their integration with nanophotonics. The combination with periodic arrays of aluminum nanodisks that support collective plasmonic resonances leads to enhanced directional emission.

A panchromatic modification of the light absorption spectra of metal-organic frameworks

The optical absorption of UiO-66–NH2 MOF was red-shifted using a diazo-coupling reaction. The modifications performed with naphthols and aniline yielded reddish samples, and the modifications with diphenylaniline yielded dark violet ones. The photocatalytic activity of these modified MOFs was assessed for methylene blue degradation, showing a good performance relative to traditional TiO2. The degradation performance was…

Evidence of upconversion luminescence contribution to the improved photoactivity of erbium doped TiO2 systems

Er3+–TiO2 synthesized by a surfactant free hydrothermal method exhibits good photoactivities under sun-like excitation for the degradation of phenol. The presence of Er3+ does not affect the structural and morphological features of the TiO2 significantly. The best photocatalytic performance was attained for the samples with 2 wt% of Er. Different photocatalytic runs indicated that the…

Self-assembly at room temperature of thermally stable discrete and extended oligomers of polycyclic aromatics on Ag(100): induced dipoles and cooperative effects

Thermally stable nanoarchitectures are realized on the Ag(100) surface by self-assembly of asymmetrically substituted arenes. The process is instigated by adsorption-induced molecule → surface charge transfer that gives rise to in-plane dipole moments. Observation and calculation indicate that cooperative interactions further enhance the stability of these polarizable systems.