Double beam pulsed laser deposition of composite films of poly(methyl methacrylate) and rare earth fluoride upconversion phosphors

作者：Darwish Abdalla M^*; Sagapolutele Michael Tavita; Saitisov Sergey; Patel Darayas; Hui David; Koplitz Brent

来源：Composites Part B: Engineering , 2013, 55: 139-146.

DOI：10.1016/j.compositesb.2013.06.013

• Pulsed laser deposition
• Polymer-matrix composites (PMCs)
• Thin films
• Optical properties/techniques
• Physical methods of analysis

The objective of the work is to demonstrate feasibility of producing functional polymer nanocomposite films for light emitting applications using the new double beam pulsed laser deposition (DPLD) technique. The existing pulsed laser deposition vacuum chamber has been modified to accommodate two laser beams of different wavelengths for the in situ ablation of two targets: a polymer host and a rare earth based highly efficient upconversion emitting inorganic dopant. Special provisions were made for cooling the target to control the ablation of the polymer without interrupting the process. Nanocomposite films of acrylic polymer and nanoparticles of the compounds of the rare earth elements were fabricated by the proposed method with near-infra-red laser radiation (1064-nm wavelength) ablating the polymer targets and visible radiation (532 nm) ablating the inorganic targets. The fabricated nanocomposite films were characterized using atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, optical fluorescence spectroscopy, and visual observation of the fluorescence. It was discovered that the produced polymer nanocomposite films retained the crystalline structure and the upconversion fluorescence properties of the initial rare earth compounds mainly due to the better control of the deposition process of the materials with substantially different properties. The proposed method can be potentially used for making a wide variety of composite films.

• 出版日期2013-12