Time resolved ultraviolet photoluminescence of mesoporous silica

CARBONARO, CARLO MARIA;Clemente F;CORPINO, RICCARDO;RICCI, PIER CARLO;ANEDDA, ALBERTO

2005-01-01

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Abstract

We studied the optical properties of sol-gel synthesized porous silica excited by synchrotron radiation in the 4-10 eV range. The spectral and temporal characteristics of the ultraviolet photoluminescence at about 3.7 eV are reported. The UV emission results from the contribution of two different centers: the first one centered at 3.7 eV with a decay time of 2.0 ns and the second one peaked at 3.9 eV with a decay time of 20 ns. We propose to assign the observed luminescence to different interacting surface silanols.