Ytterbium Oxide (Yb2O3) is a white Powder, water-insoluble powder with a cubic crystal structure. It is used as a colorant for glasses and enamels and as a dopant for garnet crystals in lasers. Moreover, Ytterbium Oxide is widely used in numerous fiber amplifier and fiber optic technologies.

Synthesis of Yb2O3 nanofibers

Yb2O3 nanofibers were produced by the electrospinning technique in parallel with previous studies. Typically, 1 mmol YbAc3 was dissolved in 5 mL DMF and then 400 mg PAN (8% w/v) was added to the solution. This mixture was stirred overnight to obtain a homogeneous solution. The homogenized solution was then placed in the syringe with a 21-gauge needle and the feed rate of the syringe pump was set as 1 mL/h.

The sample collector was fixed vertically opposite the syringe pump and its distance from the needle was adjusted to 15 cm. After the solution is prepared and the system requirements are set as described, voltage with 18 kV was applied to the metallic needle for the required electric field causing the formation of nanofibers and the sample collector was grounded. Thus, YbAc3+PAN nanofibers were collected on aluminum foils on the sample collector and these nanofibers were calcined at 500 °C for 1 h. In this way, the polymer used as a template and other volatile substances in the environment were removed and Yb2O3 nanofibers were obtained^[1] .

Ytterbium oxide crystallizes in the "rare-earth C-type sesquioxide" structure which is related to the fluorite structure with one quarter of the anions removed, leading to ytterbium atoms in two different six coordinate (non-octahedral) environments.

As a result of the analyses, it was seen that the nanofibers consist of nanoparticles with 9 ± 2 nm, which have a pure and cubic crystal structure. Moreover, the chemical composition of the nanofibers was calculated as Yb2.19O2.81 by EDX. It was determined with optical measurements and calculations that the nanofibers have a direct band transition type and a band-gap value of 3.32 eV. The obtained characterization results show that the high crystalline Yb2O3 nanofibers can be used in many energy applications such as solar cells, hydrogen production, oxygen evolution-reduction reactions, and fuel cells. 

Reference

[1] Sarilmaz, Adem. “Ytterbium oxide nanofibers: fabrication and characterization for energy applications.” Turkish Journal of Chemistry 46 5 (2022): 1694–1701.