Comparison of luminescent properties of Y2O3: Eu3+ and LaPO4: Ce3+,Tb3+ phosphors prepared by various synthetic methods

The crystallite and particle sizes, morphology and corresponding photoluminescence (PL) properties of nanocrystalline phosphors Y2O3+:Eu3+ and LaPO4:Ce3+,Tb3+, produced by combustion synthesis, co-precipitation, hydrothermal reaction, sol-gel, spray pyrolysis, and solid-state reaction protocols, are compared. In general, phosphor particles with a relatively large crystallite size with a spherical and agglomerated morphology are favored for emitting the highest PL intensity. However, spray-pyrolyzed particles with a uniform spherical morphology and narrow size distribution produced the lowest PL emission intensity, which is attributed to the small crystallite size. For both compositions, the PL emission intensity increased with increasing crystallite size, but was not noticeably dependent on the particle size. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.