Intense visible light emission from fullerene-doped silica aerogel

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Abstract
We report that fullerenes (C60/C70) can be uniformly encased in silica aerogel by sol‐gel process together with supercritical drying technique. Intense visible light emission (2.26 eV) is observable with the naked eye from the composite under an Ar+ laser (488 nm) excitation at room temperature. The luminescent intensity is found to increase strongly with low doping of fullerenes (0.05 mol %) and then to decrease while the peak is red shifted, and finally quenched upon heavy doping (up to 2.5 mol %). This effect is consistent with the behavior of the fullerenes entrapped in the micropores linked by the silica networks resulting in the quantum confinement effect which then produce emission far above the interband gap of C60/C70.