A 'lawn-like' distribution of interconnected zinc oxide nanorods, coated with a metalorganic compound based on zeolitic imidazolate frameworks-ZIF-8 was prepared on microstructured thin-film interdigitated Pt-electrodes forming ZnO@ZIF-8 core-shell heterostructures and investigated as gas sensor material in relation to the identical, but uncovered pure ZnO-layer. This composite combines the gas sensing properties of the metal oxide ZnO with the specific properties of the metal organic framework material which result in a distinct change of the conditions of gas sensing at the ZnO/ZIF-8-interface. Herein, for the first time it is reported that as prepared ZnO@ZIF-8 composite material is an attractive choice to reduce the cross-sensitivity to water vapour (humidity) in the gas sensing response towards propene and ethene. The observed change of sensitivity in relation to uncovered ZnO is discussed to be due to (i) the specific interaction of the ZIF-8 at the interface with the ZnO taking influence on the gas reaction processes, (ii) the diffusivity of ZIF-8 for the different gas components, and (iii) the sorption behaviour of the used gases at the ZnO interface and inside the ZIF-8 material.
Fabrication of a new nanocomposite architecture comprising small weight percentage (< 0.5 wt%) of Toluidine Blue O dye as a filler in host polymer poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) via a simple route based on solution-casting is presented. Their microstructure, electrical, linear optical and third-order nonlinear optical properties are introduced here. These samples were characterized as nanocomposites, with dye chromophore uniformly distributed in the molecular chains of the polymer PVA. The effect of fluorescence quenching due to H-aggregates is also discussed. Low threshold third order nonlinear optical response of these nanocomposite film samples was carried out employing the Z-scan technique. With increase in intensity, a transition from reverse saturable absorption to saturable absorption was observed in the nanocomposite films, on excitation with continuous wave (CW) He-Ne laser light. The nonlinear refraction based optical limiting of CW laser light is demonstrated using aperture limited geometry. Compared with other reported results, the estimated values of the nonlinear refractive index (n 2), nonlinear absorption coefficients (β), third order nonlinear susceptibility (χ (3)) and limiting threshold are much better. These results thus possess tremendous scope towards future fabrication of optoelectronic and photonic devices such as organic/polymer light-emitting devices, dye-sensitized solar cells, optical limiters, optical switches, etc.
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