Preparation, structural investigation and optical properties determination of composite films based on PAZO polymer doped with GeTe₄-Cu chalcogenide particles

Abstract

The work presents preparation, structural investigation and optical properties characterization of composite films based on the azopolymer (poly[1-[4-(3-carboxy-4-hydroxyphenylazo)benzenesulfonamido]-1,2- ethanediyl, sodium salt]), shortly PAZO, doped with 1 wt.% particles of the previously synthesized by us new tellurium containing chalcogenide system (GeTe4)100-xCux, where x = 5, 10, 15 and 20 mol.%. X-Ray diffraction (XRD) was applied to analyze the structure of the chalcogenide bulk material. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been used to study the particles and the composite films morphology. The transmittance coefficient (T), the reflectance coefficient (R), the refractive index (n), the extinction coefficient (k), the optical absorption coefficient (α) and the optical band gap (E_g^opt) of the composite films were determined. Birefringence was induced by a He-Cd laser with a wavelength 442 nm and measured with probe Diode Pumped Solid State (DPSS) laser at 635 nm. The influence of the dopants concentration on the optical performance of the composite films has been discussed.

Nanocomposite Photoanisotropic Materials for Applications in Polarization Holography and Photonics

“…Nanoparticles with different compositions have attracted the attention of researchers as possible dopant components, such as quantum dots (QDs) [134][135][136], carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and carbon nanofibers (CNFs) [137,138], ZnO [128,[139][140][141][142], SiO 2 [143,144], TiO 2 [145][146][147][148], semiconductor nanoparticles like tellurium containing chalcogenide system (GeTe 4 ) 100−x Cu x [149] and goethite (α-FeOOH) nanorods [129,150], nanozeolites [151], and upconverting nanoparticles (UCNPs) [152]. Gold (Au) and silver (Ag) NPs are the most commonly used metallic nanoparticles [132,146,[153][154][155][156][157][158][159][160][161].…”

“…The chemical structures of some azo-containing polymers used for nanocomposite components are presented in Figure 2. A very commonly used azopolymer, as we have [164]); (e) SEM image of carbon nanotubes (reprinted with permission from [137]); (f) SEM image of carbon nanofibers (reprinted with permission from [137]); (g) TEM image of upconverting hexagonal nanoparticles (scale bar is 200 nm) (reprinted with permission from [152]); (h) TEM image of Au colloidal solution (reprinted with permission from [160]); (i) TEM image of Au NPs (reprinted with permission from [156]); (j) TEM image of Ag (reprinted with permission from [155]); (k) SEM image of Ag nanocubes. The inset shows a TEM image of silver nanocubes (scale bar is 100 nm) (reprinted with permission from [165]); (l) TEM image of goethite nanorods (reprinted with permission from [150]).…”

“…A very commonly used azopolymer, as we have already noted, is the commercially available azopolymer PAZO (poly[1-4-(3-carboxy-4hydrophenylazo)benzensulfonamido]-1,2-ethanediyl, sodium salt]). PAZO was used as the base to obtain photoanisotropic NCs by many authors, like Berberova et al [128,141,158], Nedelchev et al [129,140,150], Falcione et al [132], Fernandez et al [146], Mateev et al [147,162], Nazarova et al [148,156], Stoilova et al [149,163], and others. [147,162], Nazarova et al [148,156,166], Stoilova et al [149,163], Hautala et al [161], Kang et al [145], Achimova et al [135], and Vijayakumar et al [167].…”

“…PAZO was used as the base to obtain photoanisotropic NCs by many authors, like Berberova et al [128,141,158], Nedelchev et al [129,140,150], Falcione et al [132], Fernandez et al [146], Mateev et al [147,162], Nazarova et al [148,156], Stoilova et al [149,163], and others. [147,162], Nazarova et al [148,156,166], Stoilova et al [149,163], Hautala et al [161], Kang et al [145], Achimova et al [135], and Vijayakumar et al [167]. Some other azopolymers have also been employed as components of NPM and are denoted by the authors as follows: P 1 -Nedelchev et al [139], Nazarova et al [166], P 1-2 -Nedelchev et al [139], Nazarova et al [166], P 2 -Nedelchev et al [139], p4VP(DY7) 1.0 Hautala et al [161], PDR19-Kang et al [145], PEPC-co-DO-Achimova et al [135] and P1, P2, P3-Vijayakumar et al [167].…”

“…Stoilova et al [149,164] studied NC films based on the azo polymer PAZO doped with 1 wt. % particles of the newly synthesized tellurium containing chalcogenide system (GeTe 4 ) 100−x Cu x , where x = 5, 10, 15 and 20 mol.…”