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According to the World Health Organization (WHO),85% of deaths from lung cancer were attributable to tobacco use in 2018 (WHO, 2020). However, this data is from the European region and there is a lack of studies related in developing countries such as Peru. In this frame, we employed the nuclear technique of energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) in order to analyzed 3 of the most consumed brands of cigarettes in Peru were analyzed. To do so, an artificial experiment array was carried out to simulate the human lungs of not only an active but a passive smoker as well. With these results, this research was able to find the elemental chemical composition of the tar that it is impregnated to the lungs of the consumer for each brand and give a glance about the presence of the most harmful of elements.

Photonic and electronic properties exist inherently in ferroelectric barium titanate (BaTiO3); severe luminescence quenching also exists due to the insufficient confinement of excitons. In this sense, high optical emission can only be achieved by its chemical and structural modification. Thin BaTiO3 and Er:BaTiO3 films were grown by the spin coating method on a glass substrate at room temperature. Self-trapping of excitons in the thin BaTiO3 film and its structural modification due to the doping with Er3+ ions (Er:BaTiO3) are verified using scanning confocal fluorescence microscopy (SCFM), where self-trapping excitons never occured in its pure state. By thermal treatment and doping (BaTiO3 and Er:BaTiO3) we obtained localization of the excitons, which would further induce lattice strain around the surface defects, to accommodate the self-trapped excitons. With such a self-trapped state, the structure of BaTiO3 generates broadband emission of several overlapping bands between 1.95 and 2.65 eV at room temperature, while the structure Er:BaTiO3 showed defined emission bands at 2.24 and 2.35 eV, with very weak contributions of the emission due to the self-trapping state. The influence of the variation of the excitation wavelength using 1PE and 2PE on the emission bands of BaTiO3 and Er:BaTiO3 is also investigated. The results of enhanced emission bands suggest a clear dependence of the emission intensity on the excitation energy, where a ∼3 fold enhancement in emission has been demonstrated under Er3+ (1.55 eV) excitation, which can be attributed to effective energy transfer between the Er3+ ions. As a result, it is concluded that the developed BaTiO3 and Er:BaTiO3 can pave the way for future photonic devices.

The electronic properties of BaTiO3 perovskite oxides are not completely understood, despite their excellent electro-optical performance and potential for light generation. Particularly, when there is multiple peak formation in the photoluminescence spectra, their origins are not discussed. Their luminescence spectra reveal an unexpected thermodynamic relationship between the core excitonic states and the surface of the BaTiO3. These results give a broad insight into the origins of the emission properties of perovskite oxides. The self-trapped excitons contribution to the broadbands highlights their extrinsic origin. Through spectroscopy techniques and parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) modeling, we demonstrate that additional broadbands are sensitive to extrinsic defects, type ν-CH3, a product of decomposition of 2-propanol. The presence of C–H bonds shows the dependence with the calcination temperature and the increase of the lattice expansion coefficient until 4.7 × 10−6 K−1 resulting in the contribution to the change of band gap with the temperature ((dEg/dT)P). In this work, we correlated the electronic properties of BaTiO3 with intrinsic and extrinsic defects and elucidated the presence of additional broadbands. This approach differentiates the contributions of excitonic states and surfaces, which is necessary to understand the electronic properties of perovskite oxides.

High crystalline quality erbium-doped zirconium oxide films were deposited on Si(100) by electron beam evaporation in high vacuum. Characteristics of light emission in the telecommunication window from erbium oxide crystal zirconium oxide films were investigated before and after furnace annealing in oxygen atmosphere. The luminescence intensity of the erbium-doped thin film after annealing at 900 °C was 18 times higher than those before thermal annealing. Also, it was observed a decrease in the intensity of luminescence and the 4 I 13/2 lifetime with the increase of the erbium concentration, which was analyzed via energy transfer - quenching. The structure environment of the erbium ion in the thin film before and after annealing has been studied by X-ray diffraction. The surface morphology of the films as a function of the annealing temperature and atmosphere showed a significant change.