Synthesis of molybdenum oxide-titanium
dioxide nanocomposites with ultrashort laser
ablation in water
ABDUL QAYYUM KHAN,
1
SHUAI YUAN,
2
SHENG NIU,
1
LIJUAN ZHENG,
1
WENXUE LI,
1
AND HEPING ZENG
1,2,*
1
State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062,
China
2
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Modern Optical System, Engineering Research Center of Optical
Instrument and System (Ministry of Education), University of Shanghai for Science and Technology,
Shanghai 200093, China
*
hpzeng@phy.ecnu.edu.cn
Abstract: Nanocomposites of Molybdenum oxide (MoO
3
) and Titanium dioxide (TiO
2
) were
synthesized with femtosecond laser ablation of the pelleted powder in water. The pressing
with Cold Isostatic press (CIP) provides facile method for pelletization of the oxides mixture.
With this method the nanocomposites can be synthesized without replacement of the target
during laser ablation. After laser ablation in water the stable MoO
3
-TiO
2
nanocomposites
were synthesized. The morphology of the synthesized nanocomposites was investigated with
transmission electron microscopy. While the band gap modifications of the synthesized
nanocomposites were witnessed with UV-Visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy analysis.
Besides, the generated nanocomposites were used for photovoltaic and photocatalytic
applications. The nanocomposites exhibit significant improvement in the rate of photo
conversion and photodegradation as well.
© 2017 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (350.3390) Laser materials processing, (160.4236) Nanomaterials, (160.6000) Semiconductor
materials, (350.6670) Surface photochemistry.
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Vol. 25, No. 12 | 12 Jun 2017 | OPTICS EXPRESS A539
https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.25.00A539
Received 21 Mar 2017; revised 20 Apr 2017; accepted 23 Apr 2017; published 3 May 2017