Behavior of the thermal expansion coefficient of α-MoO3 as a function of the concentration of the Nd3+ ion

We carried out a comparative study of the thermal dilatation coefficient of molybdenum trioxide with and without Nd3+ doping. The doped samples were obtained from a solid state reaction of MoO3 and Nd2O3 in concentrations from 0.2 to 20.0 at%. The prepared samples were analyzed as a function of the temperature through X-Ray diffraction (XRD), the chemical composition of the resultant material was studied using Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS). The results of the XRD show that the MoO3 doped with Nd in concentrations of 0.2 and 1.0% atomic grows iso-structurally with α-MoO3. Moreover, MoO3 doped with Nd3+ in concentrations of 5.0, 10.0 and 20.0% atomic exhibits the monoclinic phase Mo9O26. Finally, we determined that the values of the thermal expansion coefficient of MoO3, doped and un-doped, differ by less than 3%.