Artículos SCI

Optofluidic lasers have been widely investigated over the last few years mainly because they can be easily integrated in sensor devices. However, high power pulse lasers arc required as excitation sources, which, in practice, limit the portability of the system. Trying to overcome some of these limitations, in this paper we propose the combined use of a small CW laser with a Fabry-Perot optofluidic planar microcavity showing high sensitivity and versatility for detection of liquid properties and label-free sensing. Firstly, a fluorescein solution in ethanol is used to demonstrate the high performances of the FP microcavity as a temperature sensor both in the laser (high pump power above laser threshold) and in the fluorescence (low pump power) regimes. A shift in the wavelength of the resonant cavity modes is used to detect changes in the temperature and our results show that high sensitivities could be already obtained using cheap and portable CW diode lasers. In the second part of the paper, the demonstration of this portable device for label-free sensing is illustrated under low CW pumping. The wavelength positions of the optolluidic resonant modes are used to detect glucose concentrations in water solutions using a protein labelled with a fluorescent dye as the active medium.

High surface area mesoporous ZnS nanoparticles (MZN) were obtained with the aid of the by-product of the synthesising reaction. This by-product, namely NaNO3, can be considered as a soft template responsible for the formation of pores. Ethanol and water were chosen as the synthesis media. Ultrasonic waves were used as an accelerator for the synthesis of MZNs. Photocatalytic activities of the synthesised samples for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) were investigated under ultraviolet irradiation. Synthesised specimens were characterised using field emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, N-2-physisorption, and FT-IR spectroscopy. Results indicated that the synthesis media has a pronounced effect on the surface properties of the final porous particles by several mechanisms. The specific surface area of the MZN samples synthesised in water and ethanol were determined to be 53 and 201m(2)g(-1), respectively. The difference in the specific surface area was attributed to the weak solvation of S2- ions (Na(2)S5H(2)O in ethanol) and also to the by-product of the synthesis reaction. The photocatalytic behaviour of the mesoporous ZnS nanoparticles synthesised in these two media were investigated and the results have been interpreted with the aid of effective surface area, pore volume, and bandgap energy of the specimens.