Organic-inorganic nano-composite of PMMA-forsterite doped with Eu+3

Abstract

Drying-step in sol-gel processing was bypassed by exchanging alcoholic solvent in forsterite alcogel directly with MMA. By in-situ polymerization of the MMA organic-inorganic nano-composite of PMMA-forsterite tvas prepared. As porous nature of inorganic networks in the gel was preserved and fixated in the composite, spherical morphology of PMMA was resulted. The PMMA-forsterite composite was optically transparent, machinable, mechanically sustainable, and thermally more stable than pristine PMMA. When doped with Eu+3 inorganic moiety in the composite provided site environment that is very different from that in pristine PMMA. Prominent D-5(0) --> F-7(0) transition at 578 nm, broken degeneracy in D-5(0) --> F-7(1) and D-5(0) --> F-7(2) transitions suggested that Eu+3 was exclusively doped in the inorganic moiety of the composite, which had lower symmetry than the organic counterpart.