Luminescence enhancement by gamma irradiation of nanocomposites for UV dosimetry devices

• Hybrid nanocomposite shows improvements to act as a new LCMD nanodevice.
• Nanodevice shows enhancement of luminescence after gamma irradiation: 50 kGy for CNT-free and 5 kGy for CNT-containing films.
• Photonic devices based on CNT-containing nanocomposites shows a selfstanding form.

The aim of this work is to evaluate the influence of gamma radiation on a material constituted by a photonic complex used in a UV dosimetry device embedded in a polymeric composite with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT). Films of CNT-free and MWCNT-containing composites were exposed to a gamma radiation beam of 60Co. Characterization was performed by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric curves (TGA), and luminescence spectroscopy. The results indicate that the presented self-standing hybrid films show improvements to act as a better light conversion molecular device (LCMD) for UV dosimetry applications. Best results are attained after 50 kGy of gamma irradiation (60Co) for CNT-free composites, and 5 kGy for MWCNT-containing films.