Hello,
I am currently working in amorphous tantalum oxide (Ta2O5) nanoparticles doped with Ln3+ in this material. I want to see the interaction between these two materials after doping.
What is the best way to see the interaction between Ta and a Ln3+ chemistry between them? Which technique (XPS and XRD) can I use to understand the binding between them?
In general XPS will give you information on the binding energies. XRD could be interesting if you know you will get a crystalline outcome, otherwise it will not give you much information. I would consider to measure the interaction between Ln3+ and Ta also with optical measurements (ellipsometry, reflectance & transmission spectra to determine absorption) to e.g. determine bandgap and specific absorption peaks.
You can also use electron spin resonance (ESR) to investigate interaction between La3+ and matrix.
Technique beside above,Raman spectroscopy is useful to investigation of intrinsic defects formation as a result of interaction between Ln3+ and Ta.
Dear Narasimhan Ashwin Kumar
You may try EXAFS beamline for your sample (amorphous). It will give you more idea about local structure.
I agree with Darshan that EXAFS, as well as XANES would be a very good approach. The other suggestions given are also useful approaches. With XRD you can still study amorphous materials (with pair distribution function (pdf) approach), but you won't get much info on the Ln3+ dopant unless you have at least ~5mol%Ln2O3, preferably considerably more than that.
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