ABSTRACT

Au@Ag doped core-shell ternary SiO2-TiO2-ZrO2 glasses were prepared through a

non-hydrolytic sol-gel process. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) was
employed to identify the vibrational modes present in the ternary glass. X-ray diffraction
of ternary glass matrix was carried out to identify whether the sample matrix is of
crystalline or amorphous in nature. Transition Electron Microscopy (TEM) analysis was
carried out to study the size and morphology of silver and gold Nano particles and to
understand their distribution among the sample. From the results of TEM analysis, the
core and shell Nano particles were able to distinguish separately. The Au@Ag doped
core-shell was mixed with Rhodamine6G (R6G) dye to study the effect of photo
degradation. Experiments were conducted using core-shell Nano particles mixed with
R6G dye irradiating under ultra violet light and visible light at half an hour time intervals.
The samples showed increase in rate of degradation with time. From the comparative
study under two different lights, it is found that the sample which was irradiated under
ultra violet (UV) light showed more degradation than the sample irradiated under visible
light. The results were obtained from the study of UV-VIS absorption spectra.