The approach of the atomic pair distribution function (PDF) technique to study the structure of nanocrystalline materials is considered and successfully applied to V2O5.nH2O xerogel and Cs intercalated inside the pores of the zeolite ITQ-4. We find that V2O5.nH2O is an assembly of almost perfect bi-layers of VO5 units encapsulating the water molecules. Inside the nanopores of ITQ-4 the cesium i...

Enhanced Lithium-Ion Intercalation Properties of V2O5 Xerogel Electrodes with Surface Defects Dawei Liu, Yanyi Liu, Anqiang Pan, Kenneth P. Nagle, Gerald T. Seidler, Yoon-Ha Jeong, and Guozhong Cao* Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Chi...

Hydrophobic photostable dye molecules such as perylenes or pyrromethenes were trapped in xerogel matrices. Using these new materials as solid-state dye lasers, we have demonstrated efficient laser operation. Slope efficiencies of up to 30% were obtained in the millijoule output-energy range. Tunabilities of up to 60 nm were observed, and more than 150,000 pulses were emitted by the same spot of...

The new material consisting of Gd1.6Dy0.4(WO4)3 incorporated into silica xerogel was prepared via the coprecipitation method. The luminescence properties of the studied material were analyzed by means of emission and excitation spectra, including the result of luminescence lifetimes of Dy(III) ion. The enhanced yellow emission due to the excitation energy transfer from group to Dy(III) ion upon...

Carbon xerogels were prepared by the polycondensation of resorcinol and formaldehyde using three different solution pH values and the gels were carbonized at three different temperatures. Results show that it is possible to tailor the pore texture of carbon xerogels by adjusting the pH of the initial solution and the carbonization temperature. Materials with different textural properties were o...

Xerogels consisting of SiO2 and TiO2 were explored for controlled release of brilliant blue FCF (BBF). Both SiO2 and SiO2–TiO2 xerogels were prepared by way of sol–gel processing, and the BBF release behavior was compared. SiO2–TiO2 xerogels with varying TiO2 content were also studied and the BBF release behavior was determined for each SiO2–TiO2 xerogel. It was found that the release of BBF fr...

We describe an automated robotic technique called direct-dispense to fabricate a polymeric platform that supports optical sensor arrays. Direct-dispense, which is a type of the emerging direct-write microfabrication techniques, uses fugitive organic inks in combination with cross-linkable polymers to create microfluidic channels and other microstructures. Specifically, we describe an applicatio...

We investigate the controlled release of lidocaine hydrochloride from the doped silica-based xerogels. In the xerogel preparation, tetraethoxysilane (TEOS), methyltriethoxysilane (MTES), and propyltriethoxysilane (PTES) are used as precursors, and a nonionic surfactant Igepal CO 720 is used as a dopant. The experimental results suggest that the release of lidocaine hydrochloride can be easily c...