Fabrication and photoluminescence properties of color-tunable light emitting lanthanide doped GdVO4 hierarchitectures

The flower-like GdVO4:Ln(3+)(Ln(3+) =Eu3+, Dy3+, Sm3+, Tm3+) hierarchitectures have been successfully synthesized on a glass slide substrate through a one-pot hydrothermal route assisted by disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (Na2H2L, where L4-=(CH2COO)(2)N(CH2)(2)N(CH2COO)(2)(4-)). A high density and ordered flower-like GdVO4:Ln(3+) hierarchitectures grew epitaxially on glass substrate. The as-prepared flower-like architectures with the size about 6 mu m are constructed by the numerous radially oriented single-crystalline nanorods with the width from 20 nm to 200 nm and the length from 500 nm to 3 mu m. The morphologies, the thickness, and the density of as-grown flower clusters can be readily tuned by tailoring the growth time and Na2H2L/Gd3+ molar ratio. The possible formation mechanism of flowerlike GdVO4:Ln(3+) hierarchitectures is discussed on the basis of the results from the controlled experiments under hydrothermal conditions. Because of an energy transfer from vanadate groups to dopants, the flower-like GdVO4:Ln(3+)(Ln(3+) =Eu3+, Dy3+, Sm3+ and Tm3+) superstructures showed strong characteristic dominant emissions of the Eu3+, Dy3+, Sm3+ and Tm3+ ions at 617 nm (D-5(0)-F-7(2), strong red), 575 nm (F-4(9/2) -> H-6(13/2), yellow), 604 nm ((4)G(5/2) -> H-6(7/2), orange-red) and 476 nm ((1)G(4) -> H-3(6), blue) under ultraviolet excitation, respectively.Further, the emission color of the product can also be tuned by selecting the dopant Ln(3+) with characteristic emissions and varying the concentration ratio of co-doping activators. This approach could be extended to the fabrication of hierarchical structures for other oxide micro/nanomaterials, and may provide a general way to achieve multicolor-tunable emission for many applications. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.