Roberto Teghil | Università della Basilicata (original) (raw)

Papers by Roberto Teghil

Advanced Materials Research, 2013

In this work the microscopic morphology of titanium carbide thin films, obtained by pulsed laser ... more In this work the microscopic morphology of titanium carbide thin films, obtained by pulsed laser ablation, are studied. A target of TiC has been ablated in vacuum with a laser Twinkle of Light Conversion Ltd. capable to furnish impulses of 250 fs, with a repetition frequency of 10 Hz at the wavelength of 527 nm. The ablated material has been deposited on (111) oriented silicon substrates, maintained at ambient temperature during the film deposition. Digital images of the films have been acquired through scanning electron microscopy. Numerical codes have been developed in Matlab environment, to obtain a three-dimensional reconstruction of the film surfaces starting from the bidimensional images. On such reconstruction a multi-scale analysis has been performed by hilbertian methods, for the characterization of the surface roughness and to study the distribution of the deposited nanoparticles. The results show that the free surface of the film has a characteristics scale invariance tha...

Applied Surface Science, 2018

Well crystallized and homogeneous iron doped LiCoPO 4 (LCfP) thin films have been grown by ns Pul... more Well crystallized and homogeneous iron doped LiCoPO 4 (LCfP) thin films have been grown by ns Pulsed Laser Ablation, at ambient temperature without any substrate heating or post-annealing treatments. The films have been deposited in vacuum and in the presence of buffer gases (O 2 , Ar) and it has been found that their crystallinity, structure and morphology depend on pressure conditions. The films have been studied by Scanning Electron Microscopy and X Ray Diffraction, while their first steps of growth have been characterized by Transmission Electron Microscopy. A study of the plasma produced by the laser ablation in the different pressure conditions has been carried out with the aim of elucidate the mechanisms involved in the films deposition. LCfP thin films have been also tested as microelectrodes in lithium cells in galvanostatic condition for analyzing the reversibility of the lithium-ion battery.

Cell Biology and Toxicology

Substituting small molecule drugs with abundant and easily affordable ions may have positive effe... more Substituting small molecule drugs with abundant and easily affordable ions may have positive effects on the way countless disease treatments are approached. The interest in strontium cation in bone therapies soared in the wake of the success of strontium ranelate in the treatment of osteoporosis. A new method for producing thin strontium-containing hydroxyapatite (Sr-HA, Ca 9 Sr(PO 4 ) 6 (OH) 2 ) films as coatings that render bioinert titanium implant bioactive is reported here. The method is based on the combination of a mechanochemical synthesis of Sr-HA targets and their deposition in form of thin films on top of titanium with the use of laser ablation at low pressure. The films were 1–2 μm in thickness and their formation was studied at different temperatures, including 25, 300, and 500 °C. Highly crystalline Sr-HA target transformed during pulsed laser deposition to a fully amorphous film, whose degree of long-range order recovered with temperature. Particle edges became somewhat sharper and surface roughness moderately increased with temperature, but the (Ca+Sr)/P atomic ratio, which increased 1.5 times during the film formation, remained approximately constant at different temperatures. Despite the mostly amorphous structure of the coatings, their affinity for capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide and accommodating it as carbonate ions that replace both phosphates and hydroxyls of HA was confirmed in an X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic analysis. As the film deposition temperature increased, the lattice voids got reduced in concentration and the structure gradually “closed,” becoming more compact and entailing a linear increase in microhardness with temperature, by 0.03 GPa/°C for the entire 25–500 °C range. Biocompatibility and bioactivity of Sr-HA thin films deposited on titanium were confirmed in an interaction with dental pulp stem cells, suggesting that these coatings, regardless of the processing temperature, may be viable candidates for the surface components of metallic bone implants.

Coatings

Oxides, borides and carbides of the transition elements are materials of great interest from a te... more Oxides, borides and carbides of the transition elements are materials of great interest from a technologic point of view. Many of these materials are used in the form of thin films, so several techniques are commonly used to deposit them. Among these techniques, Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) performed using ultra-short pulse lasers, mainly fs lasers, presents unique characteristics in respect to PLD performed using conventional short pulse lasers. Indeed, the films deposited using fs PLD are often nanostructured, and this technique often allows the target stoichiometry to be transferred to the films. In this work, we will review the use of ultra-short PLD in the production of films obtained from transition metal oxides, borides and carbides, evidencing the advantages offered by this technique, together with the problems arising with some of the studied systems. We conclude that even if ultra-short PLD is surely one of the most important and useful deposition techniques, it also pres...

Journal of The Electrochemical Society

In this work we discuss the co-catalysis in aprotic Li-O 2 batteries of C-free nanostructured mix... more In this work we discuss the co-catalysis in aprotic Li-O 2 batteries of C-free nanostructured mixed oxide electrodes decorated by Pd/PdO core/shell nanoparticles. A Cr(III) doped NiCo 2 O 4 material has been grown hydrothermally on an open Ni-mesh. Palladium nanoparticles have been synthesized by pulsed lased ablation in liquid acetone in the fs regime and deposited by drop casting onto the surface of the nanostructured mixed oxide electrodes. The resulting electrodes have been calcined at 300 • C. The use of laser techniques to produce nanoparticles for aLOBs is here proposed for the first time in the literature, as well as the peculiar combination of Pd/PdO nanoparticles deposited onto C-free Cr(III) doped NiCo 2 O 4 self-standing electrodes. Performance in aprotic Li-O 2 batteries have been recorded in galvanostatic conditions and post mortem analysis of the electrode surfaces have been carried out by X-ray photoemission spectroscopy. The use of Pd/PdO nanoparticles as co-catalysts enhances the reversibility of the electrochemical oxygen reduction/evolution reactions. This beneficial effect originates by the decrease of the mean overvoltages compared to the bare Cr(III) doped NiCo 2 O 4 electrodes, and extends the cell calendar life from 16 to 41 fully reversible galvanostatic cycles at J = 0.2 mAcm −2 with capacity limitation of 0.2 mAhcm −2 .

Hardness of titanium carbide films deposited on silicon (111) substrate by pulsed laser ablation ... more Hardness of titanium carbide films deposited on silicon (111) substrate by pulsed laser ablation is evaluated in dependence on laser beam fluence and the film thickness. Measurements were performed with the use of a common microhardness testing equipment, the indenter penetartion depth being more than thickness of the coating. Two methods based both on a law-of-mixtures’ approach were employed to calculate the film hardness from the measured hardness of the composite film-substrate system. One of them accounts for the indentation size effect. The hardness is revealed to reduce significantly with an increase of the film thickness and the laser beam fluence.

Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie, 2016

In this work the analysis by Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) technique of copper-base... more In this work the analysis by Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) technique of copper-based alloys having different composition and performed with fs laser pulses is presented. A Nd:Glass laser (Twinkle Light Conversion,

Scientific Reports

The adsorption of diclofenac on thermo-plasma expanded graphite (a commercial product) from water... more The adsorption of diclofenac on thermo-plasma expanded graphite (a commercial product) from water solutions was investigated. The adsorbent material was characterized by SEM, TEM, BET, Raman and X-ray diffraction analyses. Typical diffractogram and Raman spectrum of graphitic material, dimension of 24.02 nm as crystallite dimension and a surface area of 47 m2 g−1 were obtained. The effect of pH on the adsorption capacity was evaluated in the range 1–7 and the adsorption mechanism was described by kinetic and isothermal studies. Pseudo-second order and Dubinin–Radushkevich models agreed with theoretical values of adsorption capacity (i.e. 400 and 433 mg g−1, respectively) and resulted to be the best fit for kinetics and isothermal experimental data. The thermodynamics of the process was evaluated by plotting the adsorption capacity/concentration ratio at the equilibrium as a function of different values of the multiplicative inverse of temperature. Moreover, the adsorbent regeneratio...

Nanomaterials

Transition metal carbide nanoparticles are a class of technological interesting materials with a ... more Transition metal carbide nanoparticles are a class of technological interesting materials with a wide range of applications. Among metal carbides, tantalum carbides have good compatibility with the biological environment while molybdenum carbides are used as catalyst in electrochemical reactions. Laser ablation of bulk transition metal targets in some liquids is here reported and laser ablation in organic solvents is used as simple synthetic strategy for the production of carbide nanostructures. Herein, the nanoparticles produced by ultra-short laser ablation of tantalum and molybdenum in water, acetone, ethanol and toluene have been characterized by TEM, XRD and XPS analysis. The combined effect of metal and solvent chemical and physical properties on the composition of the nanomaterials obtained has been pointed out. In particular, the different reactivity of Ta and Mo with respect to oxidizing species determines the composition of particles obtained in water, on the other hand th...

BioMed research international, 2016

In tissue engineering protocols, the survival of transplanted stem cells is a limiting factor tha... more In tissue engineering protocols, the survival of transplanted stem cells is a limiting factor that could be overcome using a cell delivery matrix able to support cell proliferation and differentiation. With this aim, we studied the cell-friendly and biocompatible behavior of RKKP glass-ceramic coated Titanium (Ti) surface seeded with human amniotic mesenchymal stromal cells (hAMSCs) from placenta. The sol-gel synthesis procedure was used to prepare the RKKP glass-ceramic material, which was then deposited onto the Ti surface by Pulsed Laser Deposition method. The cell metabolic activity and proliferation rate, the cytoskeletal actin organization, and the cell cycle phase distribution in hAMSCs seeded on the RKKP coated Ti surface revealed no significant differences when compared to the cells grown on the treated plastic Petri dish. The health of of hAMSCs was also analysed studying the mRNA expressions of MSC key genes and the osteogenic commitment capability using qRT-PCR analysis ...

Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 2016