Controlled synthesis and optical properties of porous ceria nanosheets on optical fiber via a simple hydrothermal route

In this study, we develop a simple hydrothermal route to build porous CeO2 nanosheets with a thickness about 50 nm on optical fiber. Through systematic experiments, the effects of hydrothermal temperature on morphology and corresponding characteristics of the CeO2 nanosheets were examined in detail. XRD, SEM, XPS, Raman scattering and photoluminescence (PL) spectra were employed to characterize the samples. The size of the synthesized CeO2 nanosheets gradually increases while the amount of porosity was decrease with the increase of reaction temperature. Ce3+ and intrinsic oxygen vacancies were analyzed from XPS and Raman spectra. The excellent room temperature PL properties may be associated with Ce3+ ions, oxygen vacancies and the morphology of samples, and the emission intensity increases with the increase of concentration of oxygen vacancies.