Publications by authors named "Fernando L Freire"

Article Synopsis
  • * Density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate negative binding energies for these metal ions on the heterostructures, confirmed by Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) spectroscopy, which measures strong binding in water according to a Langmuir isotherm model.
  • * Among the metal ions tested, mercury (Hg) displays the highest affinity and sensitivity, with impressive detection limits, and results suggest that electron transfer plays a crucial role in enhancing the performance of SPR sensors in detecting heavy metal ions.
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Submicron long focusing range beams are gaining attention due to their potential applications, such as in optical manipulation, high-resolution lithography and microscopy. Here, we report on the theoretical and experimental characterization of an elastomeric polydimethylsiloxane/single layer graphene (PDMS/SLG) axicon-like tunable device, able to generate diffraction-resistant submicrometric spots in a pump and probe configuration. The working principle is based on the phase change of an input Gaussian beam induced in the elastomer via the thermo-optical effect, while the heating power is produced by the optical absorption of the SLG.

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Graphene grown directly on germanium is a possible route for the integration of graphene into nanoelectronic devices as well as it is of great interest for materials science. The morphology of the interface between graphene and germanium influences the electronic properties and has not already been completely elucidated at atomic scale. In this work, we investigated the morphology of the single-layer graphene grown on Ge substrates with different crystallographic orientations.

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The determination of kanamycin sulfate was made indirectly by measuring its effect on photoluminescent amino functionalized graphene quantum dots (GQDs-amino) associated with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) that were produced by the reduction of AuCl with NaBH in an aqueous dispersion of GQDs-amino (obtained by the pyrolysis of citric acid and glutathione) also containing the cationic surfactant CTAB. The AuNPs-GQDs-amino-CTAB system presents a suppressed photoluminescence that is amplified in the presence of kanamycin. Under optimized experimental conditions, the photoluminescence amplification of the nanomaterial system showed a linear response as a function of kanamycin concentration, covering three orders of magnitude (10 to 10 mol L).

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