Effects of Different TiO2 Particle Sizes on the Microstructure and Optical Limiting Properties of TiO2/Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanocomposites

Yuyu Ren; Lili Zhao; Yang Zou; Lixin Song; Ningning Dong; Jun Wang

doi:10.3390/nano9050730

Effects of Different TiO₂ Particle Sizes on the Microstructure and Optical Limiting Properties of TiO₂/Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanocomposites

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2019 May 11;9(5):730. doi: 10.3390/nano9050730.

Authors

Yuyu Ren^{1

2}, Lili Zhao^{3

4}, Yang Zou⁵, Lixin Song^{6

7}, Ningning Dong^{8

9}, Jun Wang^{10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Inorganic Coating Materials CAS, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1295 Dingxi Road, Shanghai 200050, China. renyuyu@student.sic.ac.cn.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. renyuyu@student.sic.ac.cn.
³ Key Laboratory of Inorganic Coating Materials CAS, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1295 Dingxi Road, Shanghai 200050, China. zll@mail.sic.ac.cn.
⁴ Center of Materials Sciences and Optoelectronic Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. zll@mail.sic.ac.cn.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Inorganic Coating Materials CAS, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1295 Dingxi Road, Shanghai 200050, China. zouyang@mail.sic.ac.cn.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Inorganic Coating Materials CAS, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1295 Dingxi Road, Shanghai 200050, China. lxsong@mail.sic.ac.cn.
⁷ Center of Materials Sciences and Optoelectronic Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. lxsong@mail.sic.ac.cn.
⁸ Center of Materials Sciences and Optoelectronic Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. n.n.dong@siom.ac.cn.
⁹ Laboratory of Micro-Nano Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, Key Laboratory of Materials for High-Power Laser, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China. n.n.dong@siom.ac.cn.
¹⁰ Center of Materials Sciences and Optoelectronic Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. jwang@siom.ac.cn.
¹¹ Laboratory of Micro-Nano Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, Key Laboratory of Materials for High-Power Laser, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China. jwang@siom.ac.cn.

Abstract

TiO₂/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanocomposites with two different TiO₂ particle sizes were synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method using two different source materials of Ti: tetrabutyl titanate (TBT) and commercial TiO₂ powder (P25). For respective series with the same source materials, we investigated additions that optimized the nonlinear optical properties (NLO) and optical limiting (OL) performances, and we explored the relationships between structural diversity and performance. Several characterization techniques, including X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, and diffuse reflectance ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis) were conducted to confirm the microstructures and chemical states of as-prepared materials. This indicated the existence of the Ti-O-C bond between rGO sheets and TiO₂ particles and the reduction from precursor graphene oxide (GO) to rGO. The results of UV-Vis spectra revealed that the TiO₂/rGO nanocomposites showed smaller band gaps than bare TiO₂. A nanosecond open-aperture Z-scan technique at 1064 nm was applied to investigate NLO and OL properties. TiO₂/rGO nanocomposites exhibited enhanced NLO and OL performances, arising from synergistic effects, compared to individual components. The TBT series samples performed better than the P25 series, presumably relevant to dimensional effects.

Keywords: TiO2; nanocomposites; optical limiting; reduced graphene oxide.