Investigations on new carbon-based nanohybrids combining carbon nanotubes, HfO2 and ZnO nanoparticles

摘要

In this work, we present two types of hybrid materials. The first hybrid material is a combination of carbon nanotubes (CNT) with HfD2 nanoparticles. The latter constituent on its own exhibits unusual visible photoluminescence, which is in stark contrast to non-luminescent HfO2 in the bulk form. The small size of HfO2 nanoparticles, 2.6 nrn in average, suggests surface-defect related origin of the observed photoluminescence. The other hybrid material is CNT-ZnO with the embedded ZnO nanoparticles ranging from 50nm to 100nm in size. ZnO represents a direct bandgap semiconductor renowned as highly-luminescent in a broad spectral range. The visible region is attributed to luminescence involving deep-level defects, and hence depends on the synthesis conditions. In this study we compare the morphology of the two hybrid materials with transmission electron microscopy. We further compare the photoluminescence properties and the influence of the CNT coupling on enhancing or suppressing defect related emissions. Finally, we present a novel hybrid material CNT-HfO2 capable of producing a photocurrent under zero bias.