Crystallite Size Effect on Photoluminescence of Combustion-Derived Gd2O3 Nanoparticles

Abstract

Rare earth oxides are considered materials that are commonly used in high performance luminescent devices, magnets, catalysts and various other practical applications such, as electronics, magnetism, nuclear technology, optics and catalysis. Using Gd2O3 nanoparticles synthesised by combustion route and calcinated at various temperatures (600°C, 800°C, 1000°C, and 1200°C), we have investigated its phosphors nature in this study. We evaluated the phase purity and grain size distributions from the powder X-ray diffraction patterns of all the samples. This was done using the Rietveld refinement and the FW[Formula: see text]/[Formula: see text]M technique. Our observation of the Gd2O3 nanoparticles grain size distribution was made possible using transmission electron microscopy pictures and HRSEM images. The photoluminescence spectrum of Gd2O3 nanoparticles showed emission in the region near-band-edge blue and green emission. To detail the photoluminescence behavior, the excitation, emission spectra and CIE 1976 plot were recorded and the CIE coordinates were found to be [Formula: see text] as well as [Formula: see text] that look like blue. The use of phosphors nature is enabled by studying the impact of grain size and the linear dependent behaviour of Gd2O3 nanoparticles.