Preparation and Thermal Conductivity Enhancement of Boron Nitride Nano-Material PiG Composite.

With the improvement of the conversion efficiency of LED chip and fluorescent material and the increasing demand for high-brightness light sources, LED technology has begun to move toward the direction of high-power. However, there is a huge problem that high-power LED must face with a large amount of heat generated by high power causing a high temperature thermal decay or even thermal quenching of the fluorescent material in the device, resulting in a reduction of the luminous efficiency, color coordinates, color rendering index, light uniformity, and service life of LED. In order to solve this problem, fluorescent materials with high thermal stability and better heat dissipation were prepared to enhance their performance in high-power LED environments. A variety of boron nitride nanomaterials were prepared by the solid phase-gas phase method. By adjusting the ratio of boric acid to urea in the raw material, different BN nanoparticles and nanosheets were obtained. Moreover, the control of catalyst amount and synthesis temperature can be used to synthesize boron nitride nanotubes with various morphologies. By adding different morphologies and quantities of BN material in PiG (phosphor in glass), the mechanical strength, heat dissipation, and luminescent properties of the sheet can be effectively controlled. PiG prepared by adding the right number of nanotubes and nanosheets has higher quantum efficiency and better heat dissipation after being excited by high power LED.

Scintillator-based radiocatalytic superoxide radical production for long-term tumor DNA damage.

Photocatalytic materials absorb photons ranging from the ultraviolet to near-infrared region to initiate photocatalytic reactions and have broad application prospects in various fields. However, high-energy ionizing radiations are rarely involved in photocatalytic research. In this study, we proposed a high-energy radiation-based photocatalysis method, namely "radiocatalysis", and prepared a TiO2-coated lanthanide pyrosilicate scintillator (LnPS@TiO2) as the radiocatalytic material. The lanthanide pyrosilicate post-radiation scintillators can efficiently convert radiation energy into ultraviolet energy, which can be resonantly transferred to TiO2 to selectively generate high-yield superoxide radicals (). Compared with traditional radiotherapy, this radiocatalytic process can significantly kill cancer cells while achieving long-term DNA damage by inhibiting the DNA self-repair process. Our research expands the energy response range of photocatalysis and is expected to extend radiocatalysis to the tumor treatment field.

Enhanced Transparency of Rough Surface Sapphire by Surface Vitrifaction Process.

A novel, simple, and low-cost in situ surface vitrification method has been effectively developed to enhance the optical transparency of rough surface sapphire at UV-visible-IR regions. This method is to obtain a glass layer on the sapphire surface through vitrifaction process. The thickness, refractive index, components and transition temperature of the glass layer have been investigated and discussed respectively by XRD, DSC, SEM and EDS elemental analysis. The experimental results show that the vitrified sapphire has high transparency even after 1000 °C annealing at UV-visible-IR regions.

Crystal Structure, Magnetic and Optical Properties of Mn-Doped BiFeO3 by Hydrothermal Synthesis.

In this paper, Mn doped BiFeO3 were firstly synthesized by hydrothermal process. The influence of Mn doping on structural, optical and magnetic properties of BiFeO3 was studied. The different amounts of Mn doping in BiFeO3 were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Scanning Electron Microscope, Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscope, UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and magnetic measurements. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns confirmed the formation of pure phase rhombohedral structure in BiFe(1−x) Mn (x) O3 (x = 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, 0.07) samples. The morphologies and chemical compositions of as-prepared samples could be observed by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscope (EDS). A relative large saturated magnetization (Ms) of 0.53 emu/g for x = 0.07 sample was obtained at room temperature, which is considered to be Mn ions doping. UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy showed strong absorption of light in the range of 200­1000 nm, indicating the optical band gap in the visible region for these samples. This implied that BiFe(1−x) Mn(x)O3 may be a potential photocatalyst for utilizing solar energy.

Combinatorial optimization of La, Ce-co-doped pyrosilicate phosphors as potential scintillator materials.

A combinatorial method was employed to rapidly screen the effects of La, Ce-co-doping on the luminescent properties of Gd2Si2O7 pyrosilicate using an 8 × 8 library. The candidate formulations (Gd1-x-yLax)2Si2O7:Ce2y were evaluated by luminescence pictures under ultraviolet excitation. The optimal composition was found to be (Gd0.89La0.1)2Si2O7:Ce0.02 after scaled-up preparation and detailed characterization of powder samples, which shows an excellent light output under both ultraviolet and X-ray excitation (about 5.43 times of commercial YAG:Ce powders). The XRD results indicate that the phase structure sequence is tetragonal-orthorhombic-triclinic for different calcination temperatures and doping ions. The (Gd0.89La0.1)2Si2O7:Ce0.02 powder sample also demonstrated excellent temperature stability of luminescence up to 200 °C and a short decay time of several tens of nanoseconds, suggesting that this may represent a new kind of scintillation material, such as single crystals, ceramics, glass, or phosphors.