Substantial reduction of NIR electromagnetic reflectance based on rare-earth-doped nanomaterial.
Abstract
A novel nanomaterial for electromagnetic absorption applications was manufactured. The samples are prepared through the citrate auto combustion method by doping Calcium nano ferrite with rare earth elements (samarium and gadolinium) with the specific compositions CaFe2−x−yGdxSmyO4 (x = y = 0.0, x = 0.025, y = 0.05). X-ray diffraction showed that the samples are successfully produced in a single-phase regime, with measured crystallite sizes of 21 and 18 nm. HRTEM showed a uniform distribution of the particles in the samples of hexagonal shape with well-defined boundaries. Elemental analysis is showed by using EDAX. Moreover, UV-VIS-NIR diffuse reflectance spectroscopy is used to prove that the proposed composition improves the performance of electromagnetic absorption. Then, the optical energy gaps of the pristine and doped samples are compared. Meanwhile, the obtained results proposed a promising method based on calcium nano ferrite to prepare a cheap, lightweight, and wideband absorber. The photoluminescence property was studied using 225 nm to 400 nm radiation source with step 25 nm. Furthermore, the suggested composition has great potential in other related applications like solar energy harvesting, biosensing, and photonic detection.
