Effect of cerium doping in tuning the optical and photoluminescence properties of TiO2 nanoparticles

The structural and optical properties of the Ti1-xCexO2 (0 <= x <= 0.5) powders have been achieved by pechini sol-gel technique. According to the XRD data, all of the samples have a tetragonal anatase structure. The optical properties were obtained and associated with the Ce content; the results indicated that the band gap of Ti1-xCexO2 (0 <= x <= 0.5) compounds was reduced from 3.16 to 2.8 eV with cerium content. As Ce percentage increased, the transmission also increased. The crystallite size appeared to be smaller than that determined by the SEM analysis. The proper composition of the ions represented in the structure was determined through energy-dispersive X-ray analysis. FTIR and PL measurements were also investigated. Photoluminescence spectroscopy revealed different emission peaks at 387, 421, 482, and 508 nm.These findings suggest that our material can be a good choice for UV-LED applications such as photocatalyst for visible-light water treatment and phenol photodegradation.