title: Direct-writing of PbS nanoparticles inside transparent porous silica monoliths using pulsed femtosecond laser irradiation.
abstract: Pulsed femtosecond laser irradiation at low repetition rate, without any annealing, has been used to localize the growth of PbS nanoparticles, for the first time, inside a transparent porous silica matrix prepared by a sol-gel route. Before the irradiation, the porous silica host has been soaked within a solution containing PbS precursors. The effect of the incident laser power on the particle size was studied. X-ray diffraction was used to identify the PbS crystallites inside the irradiated areas and to estimate the average particle size. The localized laser irradiation led to PbS crystallite size ranging between 4 and 8 nm, depending on the incident femtosecond laser power. The optical properties of the obtained PbS-silica nanocomposites have been investigated using absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopies. Finally, the stability of PbS nanoparticles embedded inside the host matrices has been followed as a function of time, and it has been shown that this stability depends on the nanoparticle mean size.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, Atomes et Molécules (CNRS, UMR 8523), IRCICA (USR CNRS 3380), CERLA (FR CNRS 2416), Bâtiment P5, Université Lille 1-Sciences et Technologies, F-59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, France. Mohamed.Bouazaoui@univ-lille1.fr.
authors.forename: Abdallah
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chahadih
authors.forename: Hicham
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: El Hamzaoui
authors.forename: Rémy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bernard
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Boussekey
authors.forename: Laurence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bois
authors.forename: Odile
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Cristini
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Le Parquier
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Capoen
authors.forename: Mohamed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bouazaoui