Preparation from a revisited wet chemical route of phase-pure, monocrystalline and SHG-efficient BiFeO3 nanoparticles for harmonic bio-imaging

We present two new synthetic routes for bismuth ferrite harmonic nanoparticles (BiFeO 3 HNPs). Both phase-pure and mixed phase BiFeO 3 materials were produced after improvement of the solvent evaporation and sol-gel combustion routes. Metal nitrates with a series of dicarboxylic acids (tartronic, ta...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2018-07, Vol.8 (1), p.1-10, Article 10473
Main Authors: Clarke, Gareth, Rogov, Andrii, McCarthy, Sarah, Bonacina, Luigi, Gun’ko, Yurii, Galez, Christine, Le Dantec, Ronan, Volkov, Yuri, Mugnier, Yannick, Prina-Mello, Adriele
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
132/124
140/125
639/301/1019/1022
639/301/1019/385
Chemical Sciences
Crystallization
Crystals
Evaporation
Glycerol
Humanities and Social Sciences
Material chemistry
multidisciplinary
Nanocrystals
Nanoparticles
Nitrates
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Sodium chloride
Spectroscopy
Zeta potential
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Summary:We present two new synthetic routes for bismuth ferrite harmonic nanoparticles (BiFeO 3 HNPs). Both phase-pure and mixed phase BiFeO 3 materials were produced after improvement of the solvent evaporation and sol-gel combustion routes. Metal nitrates with a series of dicarboxylic acids (tartronic, tartaric and mucic) were used to promote crystallization. We found that the longer the carbon backbone with a hydroxyl group attached to each carbon, the lower the annealing temperature. We also demonstrate that nanocrystals more readily formed at a given temperature by adding glycerol but to the detriment of phase purity, whereas addition of NaCl in excess with mucic acid promotes the formation of phase-pure, monocrystalline nanoparticles. This effect was possibly associated with a better dispersion of the primary amorphous precursors and formation of intermediate complexes. The nanoparticles have been characterized by XRD, TEM, ζ-potential, photon correlation spectroscopy, two-photon microscopy and Hyper-Rayleigh Scattering measurements. The improved crystallization leads to BiFeO 3 HNPs without defect-induced luminescence and with a very high averaged second harmonic efficiency (220 pm/V), almost triple the efficiency previously reported. This development of simple, scalable synthesis routes which yield phase-pure and, crucially, monocrystalline BiFeO 3 HNPs demonstrates a significant advance in engineering the properties of nanocrystals for bio-imaging and diagnostics applications.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-28557-w