Laser assisted directional solidification of zirconia-based eutectics

Directionally solidified zirconia-based eutectic (DSE) fibres were obtained using the laser floating zone (LFZ) method. Two systems were investigated: zirconia-barium zirconate and zirconia-mullite. The purpose was to take advantage of zirconia properties, particularly as an ionic conductor and a mechanical rein-forcement phase. The influence of processing conditions in the structural and microstructural characteristics and their consequences on the electrical and mechanical behaviour were the focus of this thesis. The novel zirconia-barium zirconate eutectic materials were developed in order to combine oxygen ionic conduction through zirconia with protonic conduction from barium zirconate, promoting mixed ionic conduction behaviour. The mi-crostructure of the fibres comprises two alternated regions: bands having coarser zirconia-rich microstructure; and inter-band regions changing from a homogeneous coupled eutectic, at the lowest pulling rate, to columnar colony microstructure, for the faster grown fibres. The bands inter-distance increases with the growth rate and, at 300 mm/h, zirconia dendrites develop enclosed in a fine-interpenetrated network of 50 vol.% ZrO2-50 vol.% BaZrO3. Both phases display contiguity without interphase boundaries, according to impedance spec-troscopy data. Yttria-rich compositions were considered in order to promote the yttrium incorporation in both phases, as revealed by Raman spectroscopy and corroborated by the elemental chemical analysis in energy dispersive spectros-copy. This is a mandatory condition to attain simultaneous contribution to the mixed ionic conduction. Such results are supported by impedance spectrosco-py measurements, which clearly disclose an increase of total ionic conduction for lower temperatures in wet/reduction atmospheres (activation energies of 35 kJ/mol in N2+H2 and 48 kJ/mol in air, in the range of 320-500 ºC) compared to the dry/oxidizing conditions (attaining values close to 90 kJ/mol, above 500 ºC). At high temperatures, the proton incorporation into the barium zirconate is un-favourable, so oxygen ion conduction through zirconia prevails, in dry and oxi-dizing environments, reaching a maximum of 1.3x10-2 S/cm in dry air, at ~1000 ºC. The ionic conduction of zirconia was alternatively combined with another high temperature oxygen ion conductor, as mullite, in order to obtain a broad elec-trolytic domain. The growth rate has a huge influence in the amount of phases and microstructure of the directionally solidified zirconia-mullite fibres. Their microstructure changes from planar coupled eutectic to dendritic eutectic mor-phology, when the growth rate rises from 1 to 500 mm/h, along with an incre-ment of tetragonal zirconia content. Furthermore, high growth rates lead to the development of Al-Si-Y glassy phase, and thus less mullite amount, which is found to considerably reduce the total ionic conduction of as-grown fibres. The reduction of the glassy phase content after annealing (10h; 1400 ºC) promotes an increase of the total ionic conduction (≥0.01 S/cm at 1370 °C), raising the mullite and tetragonal zirconia contents and leading to microstructural differ-ences, namely the distribution and size of the zirconia constituent. This has important consequences in conductivity by improving the percolation pathways. A notable increase in hardness is observed from 11.3 GPa for the 10 mm/h pulled fibre to 21.2 GPa for the fibre grown at 500 mm/h. The ultra-fine eutectic morphology of the 500 mm/h fibres results in a maximum value of 534 MPa for room temperature bending strength, which decreases to about one-fourth of this value at high temperature testing (1400 ºC) due to the soft nature of the glassy-matrix.

Preparação e caracterização de materiais com constante dieléctrica colossal baseados em CCTO

A procura de materiais com elevada constante dieléctrica (E’) motivou nos últimos anos uma intensa pesquisa neste domínio. Entre as várias aplicações destes materiais destacam-se os dispositivos de memória baseados em componentes capacitivos, como as DRAM, em que o valor da constante dieléctrica estática (Es) determina o seu nível de miniaturização. Entre estes materiais, o CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) tem sido apontado como sendo bastante interessante na perspectiva das aplicações tecnológicas e do ponto de vista científico. O CCTO tem a estrutura da perovsquite, apresentando valores elevados de E’ e uma grande estabilidade numa vasta gama de temperaturas (100 – 400 K) e frequências (100 Hz – 1 MHz). Contudo, as elevadas perdas dieléctricas (tan ) têm sido um entrave à sua aplicação tecnológica. Neste trabalho foram preparados materiais derivados do CCTO pelos métodos de reacção do estado sólido, sol-gel e fusão de zona com laser, com o principal objectivo de optimizar as amostras preparadas ao nível estrutural e morfológico, de modo a reduzir tan e aumentar a gama de frequências na qual se verifique E’colossal. Do ponto de vista da sua caracterização estrutural e morfológica usaram-se técnicas de difracção de raios X, microscopia electrónica de varrimento, espectroscopia de dispersão de raios X e espectroscopia de Raman. Para a caracterização eléctrica foram medidas a condutividade ac e dc, a impedância complexa e E’ em função da temperatura e frequência. As medidas dieléctricas mostraram a existência de mecanismos de relaxação, que foram ajustados usando o modelo de Cole-Cole. Discutiu-se a correlação entre os parâmetros de relaxação obtidos e os resultados estruturais das amostras. Atendendo a que o mecanismo de polarização que está na origem das propriedades incomuns do CCTO ainda permanece em discussão, foram produzidas amostras com uma grande diversidade morfológica, variando as condições de síntese. Foram ainda dopadas amostras de CCTO com os óxidos TeO2 e GeO2. Constatou-se que a resposta dieléctrica das amostras de CCTO policristalinas é muito dependente do tamanho de grão. Em regra, verificou-se o aumento de Es e a diminuição da resistência dos grãos e fronteiras de grão com o aumento do tamanho de grão.

The influence of photon excitation and proton irradiation on the luminescence properties of yttria stabilized zirconia doped with praseodymium ions

Lanthanide doped zirconia based materials are promising phosphors for lighting applications. Transparent yttria stabilized zirconia fibres, in situ doped with Pr3+ ions, were grown by the laser floating zone method. The single crystalline doped fibres were found to be homogeneous in composition and provide an intense red luminescence at room temperature. The stability of this luminescence due to transitions between the 1D2 → 3H4 multiplets of the Pr3+ ions (intra-4f2 configuration) was studied by photo- and iono-luminescence. The evolution of the red integrated photoluminescence intensity with temperature indicates that the overall luminescence decreases to ca. 40% of the initial intensity at 14 K when heated to room temperature (RT). RT analysis of the iono-luminescence dependence on irradiation fluence reveals a decrease of the intensity (to slightly more than ∼60% of the initial intensity after 25 min of proton irradiation exposure). Nevertheless the luminescence intensity saturates at non-zero values for higher irradiation fluences revealing good potential for the use of this material in radiation environments.

Preparação e caracterização de fibras e nanotubos de BiFeO3 e FeNbO4

Esta dissertação teve como objetivo a produção e caracterização física de fibras e nanotubos de BiFeO3 e FeNbO4. Para o desenvolvimento destes materiais utilizou-se a técnica de fusão com laser (LFZ), o método sol-gel (Pechini) e o método de poros absorventes. As amostras obtidas foram sujeitas a uma caracterização estrutural por difração de raios-X e espetroscopia de Raman, morfológica por microscopia electrónica de varrimento e elétrica por medidas de constante dielétrica. Os resultados obtidos com a técnica de difração de raios-X mostraram que o gel com tratamento a 750 ºC é polifásico. Para conseguir produzir nanotubos escolheu-se o LaCoO3 como material alternativo. Usando a técnica de fusão de zona com laser (LFZ) obtiveram-se fibras de BiFeO3, FeNbO4 e compósitos de BiFeO3+FeNbO4. Com esta técnica foram crescidas fibras a várias velocidades (5, 10, 25, 50, 100 e 200 mm/h), tendo os resultados obtidos com a difração de raios-X evidenciado que todas as amostras obtidas são polifásicas, sendo a amostra de 10 mm/h para o BiFeO3 e a de 5 mm/h para o FeNbO4 as que apresentam melhores propriedades. As amostras de 5 mm/h de todos os compósitos são aquelas que possuem menor quantidade de segundas fases e portanto foram alvo de estudo mais aprofundado. A caracterização dielétrica permitiu verificar que todas as amostras apresentam fenómenos de relaxação dielétrica. Verifica-se também que para o BiFeO3 a constante dielétrica é superior na amostra crescida à velocidade de 10 mm/h, para o FeNbO4 é superior na amostra crescida a 5 mm/h e nos compósitos a amostra com 75% de BiFeO3 e 25% de FeNbO4 apresenta um comportamento diferente das restantes, eventualmente devido à sua microestrutura singular.

Development of Zirconia based phosphors for application in lighting and as luminescent bioprobes

The strong progress evidenced in photonic and optoelectronic areas, accompanied by an exponential development in the nanoscience and nanotechnology, gave rise to an increasing demand for efficient luminescent materials with more and more exigent characteristics. In this field, wide band gap hosts doped with lanthanide ions represent a class of luminescent materials with a strong technological importance. Within wide band gap material, zirconia owns a combination of physical and chemical properties that potentiate it as an excellent host for the aforementioned ions, envisaging its use in different areas, including in lighting and optical sensors applications, such as pressure sensors and biosensors. Following the demand for outstanding luminescent materials, there is also a request for fast, economic and an easy scale-up process for their production. Regarding these demands, laser floating zone, solution combustion synthesis and pulsed laser ablation in liquid techniques are explored in this thesis for the production of single crystals, nanopowders and nanoparticles of lanthanides doped zirconia based hosts. Simultaneously, a detailed study of the morphological, structural and optical properties of the produced materials is made. The luminescent characteristics of zirconia and yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) doped with different lanthanide ions (Ce3+ (4f1), Pr3+ (4f2), Sm3+ (4f5), Eu3+ (4f6), Tb3+ (4f8), Dy3+ (4f9), Er3+ (4f11), Tm3+ (4f12), Yb3+ (4f13)) and co-doped with Er3+,Yb3+ and Tm3+,Yb3+ are analysed. Besides the Stokes luminescence, the anti- Stokes emission upon infrared excitation (upconversion and black body radiation) is also analysed and discussed. The comparison of the luminescence characteristics in materials with different dimensions allowed to analyse the effect of size in the luminescent properties of the dopant lanthanide ions. The potentialities of application of the produced luminescent materials in solid state light, biosensors and pressure sensors are explored taking into account their studied characteristics.