Synergistic effects of rare earth doping and carbon quantum dots on BiOF/Bi2MoO6 heterojunctions for enhanced visible-near-infrared photocatalysis.

Herein, we designed and synthesized a series of rare earth doped BiOF/Bi2MoO6 heterojunctions. The doping locations of rare earth ions were altered to determine the influence on the visible and near-infrared photocatalytic activity of heterojunctions. It is experimentally and theoretically confirmed that doping with Tm3+/Yb3+ in one semiconductor of the heterojunction produces superior photocatalytic efficiency than doping in both semiconductors. In addition, the near infrared photocatalytic efficiency strongly relied on upconversion luminescence from the Re3+ doped semiconductor in the heterojunction. By further modifying with CQDs, the CQDs/BiOF:Tm3+,Yb3+/Bi2MoO6 sample shows excellent visible and near-infrared photocatalytic performance, with 90% degradation of RhB occurring in the first 20 min under visible irradiation. This can be attributed to the large BET area, efficient photoinduced carrier separation and the upconversion process of the composite. This research will provide a systematic solution for realizing full-spectrum responsive and highly efficient photocatalysis by combination of rare earth ion doping, quantum dot modification and Z-scheme heterojunctions.

Preparation of high-quality colloidal mask for nanosphere lithography by a combination of air/water interface self-assembly and solvent vapor annealing.

Nanosphere lithography (NSL) has been regarded as an inexpensive, inherently parallel, high-throughput, materials-general approach to the fabrication of nanoparticle arrays. However, the order of the resulting nanoparticle array is essentially dependent on the quality of the colloidal monolayer mask. Furthermore, the lateral feature size of the nanoparticles created using NSL is coupled with the diameter of the colloidal spheres, which makes it inconvenient for studying the size-dependent properties of nanoparticles. In this work, we demonstrate a facile approach to the fabrication of a large-area, transferrable, high-quality latex colloidal mask for nanosphere lithography. The approach is based on a combination of the air/water interface self-assembly method and the solvent-vapor-annealing technique. It enables the fabrication of colloidal masks with a higher crystalline integrity compared to those produced by other strategies. By manipulating the diameter of the colloidal spheres and precisely tuning the solvent-vapor-annealing process, flexible control of the size, shape, and spacing of the interstice in a colloidal mask can be realized, which may facilitate the broad use of NSL in studying the size-, shape-, and period-dependent optical, magnetic, electronic, and catalytic properties of nanomaterials.

Fabrication of colloidal photonic crystal heterostructures free of interface imperfection based on solvent vapor annealing.

We describe the transformation of a colloidal photonic crystal into a photonic crystal heterostructure. It was achieved by annealing a polystyrene multilayer colloidal photonic crystal partially immersed in water using a solvent vapor. The floating polystyrene colloidal photonic crystal was divided into two parts by the liquid level, which can be manipulated by the addition of ethanol into the water. The top part protruding out of the water experienced a uniform lattice stretching upon exposure to the solvent vapor. The bottom part that stayed immersed in the water remained unaffected due to the protection by the water. The inconsistent behaviors of the two parts resulted in the formation of a colloidal photonic crystal heterostructure. Such a heterostructure was free of interface imperfection since it was a direct descendant of the original colloidal crystal. Meanwhile, optical measurements demonstrated the presence of a wider photonic band gap along the crystallographic [111] direction in these photonic crystal heterostructures compared with the original colloidal photonic crystals.

Employing oxygen-plasma posttreatment to improve the laser-induced damage threshold of ZrO2 films prepared by the electron-beam evaporation method.

ZrO2 films are deposited by the electron-beam evaporation method. Parts of the prepared samples are post-treated with oxygen plasma at the environment temperature. The laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) of the films increases from 15.9 to 23.1 J/cm2 after treatment with oxygen plasma. Compared with that of the as-grown samples, significant reduction of the average microdefect density and absorption are found after oxygen-plasma posttreatment. These results indicate that the oxygen-plasma posttreatment technique is an effective and simple method for reducing the microdefect density and absorption to improve the LIDT.