ABSTRACT
In this work, the effects of the structural (crystallite size, stress) and electronic parameters (band gap, lifetime) on the photoelectrocatalysis and electron transport over CdSe electrodeposited inside TiO2-nanotubes (CdSe@TiO2NT) were investigated. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations of TiO2 were used to elucidate the electronic band structure and to correlate with experimental values. CdSe was grown by pulsed electrodeposition into previous and late thermal-treated TiO2NT (Sample-PTT and Sample-LTT, respectively) without blocking the nanotube's entrance. The Rietveld refinement method was used to obtain information from crystallographic data of each photoelectrode. The lattice strains calculated from the Rietveld analysis for Sample-PTT and Sample-LTT were 0.472 and 0.540, and the average volume of the TiO2-anatase unit cell increased from 133.235(0) Å3 to 136.950(6) Å3, respectively. Sample-PTT exhibited higher experimental electron lifetime, larger than 1.0 order of magnitude compared to Sample-LTT photoanodes. The band structures and DOS obtained by computational modelling showed theoretical band gap values of 2.54 eV and 2.75 eV, which were close to the experimental values. All studies evidenced a strong dependence of the electronic properties of the CdSe@TiO2 samples on their morphology, and, consequently, on their photoelectrochemical activity in water splitting.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To evaluate the response of MAGIC-f gel through dose response curves, percentage depth dose (PDD) and beam profile for clinical electron beams. METHODS: Glass tubes (Vacutainer ®), with 6 cm length and 0.5 cm radius, with MAGIC-f were positioned inside a water phantom to study the gel response with doses from 0.5 Gy to 20 Gy in electron beams of 6, 9 e 12 MeV. Glass tubes of 20 cm length and 1 cm radius and PMMA phantoms of 10 × 5 × 5 cm3 were used to PDD and beam profiles determinations, respectively, with a maximum dose of 2 Gy to the gel. The samples were analyzed through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a 3 T tomography using a head coil, multiple spin echo sequence with 16 echos, TE 15ms and TR 4000ms. The MAGIC-f response was simulated with PENELOPE Monte Carlo code in the same geometry used in the irradiations. The results obtained with MAGIC-f and PENELOPE were compared with clinical data. RESULTS: Calibration curves for MAGIC-f showed a linear behavior, with correlation coefficient of 0.99, for all energies. The PDD and beam profile curves obtained with MAGIC-f presented differences lower than 1.5% and 3.0%, respectively, when compared to clinical data. Results obtained by PENELOPE and clinical data showed differences up to 1.0% and 1.5%, respectively, for PDD and profile curves. CONCLUSIONS: The dosimetric parameters for electron beams obtained experimentally with MAGIC-f and with PENELOPE code showed similar results to the clinical data. From the results it can be inferred that MAGIC-f can be used as a complementary dosimetric tool for electron beams due to its characteristics of high spatial resolution and the ability to construct tridimensional dose distributions. Also PENELOPE can be used to study MAGIC-f gel response in electron beams.
