Structural and luminescence enhancement properties of Eu3＋/Ag nanocrystallites doped SiO2-TiO2 matrices

We reported here the structural and optical characterisation of silver nanocrystallites/Eu³⁺:SiO₂-TiO₂ matrices synthesised through sol-gel route. Structural characterisations were done by using energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), atomic force microscope (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) measurements and optical characterisations were performed by absorption and emission spectroscopy. The TEM and XRD measurements confirmed the presence of nanocrystals. A broad absorption band was observed due to surface plasmon resonance of silver nanocrystals. The effect of silver nanocrystals on the emission spectrum of Eu³⁺ doped SiO₂-TiO₂ matrices was discussed. An attempt was made to explain this fluorescence enhancement by invoking phenomena such as energy transfer, asymmetry ratio, surface plasmon, surface roughness, crystallinity and grain boundary. Our analysis, based on the experimental results, suggested that all the phenomena except crystallinity and grain boundary had favourable effects on fluorescence enhancement. We also estimated the relevant parameters associated with the phenomena that affected the fluorescence emission from the Eu³⁺ ions in the matrix. It was seen that the theoretical estimate of fluorescence enhancement agreed well with the experimental estimate.