Morphology and Luminescence of Nanocrystalline Nb₂O₅ Doped with Eu³⁺

Abstract

The synthesis of nanocrystalline Nb2O5:Eu3+ has been achieved by using a Pechini procedure. The obtained materials are single-phase niobia with the orthorhombic structure, average crystallite size around 25 nm and average lattice strain of about 0.002. TEM images show that the particles are rectangular and reasonably isolated. The luminescence of the Eu3+ ions in the niobia lattice is efficient and affected by a strong inhomogeneous broadening, due to an important disorder around the lanthanide ions.

References

1. D. Hreniak, W. Strek, A. Speghini, M. Bettinelli, G. Boulon, and Y. Guyot, “Infrared induced red luminescence of ${\text{Eu}}^{3+}$-doped polycrystalline ${\text{LiNbO}}_3$,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 88, Article ID 161118, 3 pages, 2006. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
2. T. Imai, S. Yagi, H. Yamazaki, and M. Ono, “Effects of heat treatment on photorefractive sensitivity of Ce- and Eu-doped strontium barium niobate,” Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 38, no. 4A, part 1, pp. 1984–1988, 1999. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
3. M. O. Ramírez, D. Jaque, L. E. Bausá, J. García-Solé, and A. A. Kaminskii, “Coherent light generation from a Nd:SBN nonlinear laser crystal through its ferroelectric phase transition,” Physical Review Letters, vol. 95, no. 26, Article ID 267401, 4 pages, 2005. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
4. A. Yoshikawa, H. Itagaki, and T. Fukuda et al., “Synthesis, crystal growth and second harmonic generation properties of trivalent rare-earth-doped non-linear tungsten-bronze-type structure ${\text{Ba}}_2{\text{Na}}_{1-3x}{\text{RE}}_x{\text{Nb}}_5{\text{O}}_{15}$ (RE = Sc, Y, La, Gd, Yb and Lu),” Journal of Crystal Growth, vol. 247, no. 1-2, pp. 148–156, 2003. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
5. A. Lorenzo, H. Jaffrezic, B. Roux, G. Boulon, and J. García-Solé, “Lattice location of rare-earth ions in ${\text{LiNbO}}_3$,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 67, no. 25, pp. 3735–3737, 1995. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
6. M. Bettinelli, A. Speghini, and A. Ródenas et al., “Luminescence of lanthanide ions in strontium barium niobate,” Journal of Luminescence, vol. 122-123, pp. 307–310, 2007. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
7. M. O. Ramirez, L. E. Bausá, A. Speghini, M. Bettinelli, L. Ivleva, and J. García-Solé, “Thermal hysteresis in the luminescence of ${\text{Yb}}^{3+}$ ions in ${\text{Sr}}_{0.6}{\text{Ba}}_{0.4}{\text{Nb}}_2{\text{O}}_6$,” Physical Review B, vol. 73, no. 3, Article ID 035119, 8 pages, 2006. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
8. O. Friedrichs, J. C. Sánchez-López, C. López-Cartes, T. Klassen, R. Bormann, and A. Fernández, “${\text{Nb}}_2{\text{O}}_5$ “pathway effect” on hydrogen sorption in Mg,” Journal of Physical Chemistry B, vol. 110, no. 15, pp. 7845–7850, 2006. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
9. T. Hyodo, J. Ohoka, Y. Shimizu, and M. Egashira, “Design of anodically oxidized ${\text{Nb}}_2{\text{O}}_5$ films as a diode-type ${\text{H}}_2$ sensing material,” Sensors and Actuators B, vol. 117, no. 2, pp. 359–366, 2006. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
10. M. Kakihana, ““Sol-gel” preparation of high temperature superconducting oxides,” Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 7–55, 1996. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
11. H. M. Rietveld, “Line profiles of neutron powder-diffraction peaks for structure refinement,” Acta Crystallographica, vol. 22, part 1, pp. 151–152, 1967. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
12. L. Lutterotti and S. Gialanella, “X-ray diffraction characterization of heavily deformed metallic specimens,” Acta Materialia, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 101–110, 1998. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
13. K. Kato and S. Tamura, “Die Kristallstruktur von $T-{\text{Nb}}_2{\text{O}}_5$,” Acta Crystallographica B, vol. 31, part 3, pp. 673–677, 1975. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
14. W. Mertin, S. Andersson, and R. Gruehn, “Über die Kristallstruktur von $\text{M}-{\text{Nb}}_2{\text{O}}_5$,” Journal of Solid State Chemistry, vol. 1, no. 3-4, pp. 419–424, 1970. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
15. K. Kato, “Structure refinement of $H-{\text{Nb}}_2{\text{O}}_5$,” Acta Crystallographica B, vol. 32, part 3, pp. 764–767, 1976. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
16. N. Pinna, M. Antonietti, and M. Niederberger, “A novel nonaqueous route to ${\text{V}}_{\text{2}}{\text{O}}_3$ and ${\text{Nb}}_2{\text{O}}_5$ nanocrystals,” Colloids and Surfaces A, vol. 250, no. 1–3, pp. 211–213, 2004. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
17. R. Brayner and F. Bozon-Verduraz, “Niobium pentoxide prepared by soft chemical routes: morphology, structure, defects and quantum size effect,” Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, vol. 5, no. 7, pp. 1457–1466, 2003. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
18. M. Daldosso, A. Speghini, and P. Ghigna et al., “Lanthanide doped strontium barium niobate: optical spectroscopy and local structure at the impurity sites,” to appear in Journal of Alloys and Compounds. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
19. http://www.webelements.com/.
20. R. Reisfeld, E. Zigansky, and M. Gaft, “Europium probe for estimation of site symmetry in glass films, glasses and crystals,” Molecular Physics, vol. 102, no. 11-12, pp. 1319–1330, 2004. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
21. E. Nakazawa, “Fundamentals of luminescence,” in Phosphor Handbook, S. Shionoya and W. M. Yen, Eds., p. 104, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Fla, USA, 1999. View at: Google Scholar
22. M. H. V. Werts, R. T. F. Jukes, and J. W. Verhoeven, “The emission spectrum and the radiative lifetime of ${\text{Eu}}^{3+}$ in luminescent lanthanide complexes,” Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, vol. 4, no. 9, pp. 1542–1548, 2002. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
23. K. Kukli, M. Ritala, M. Leskelä, and R. Lappalainen, “Niobium oxide thin films grown by atomic layer epitaxy,” Chemical Vapor Deposition, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 29–34, 1998. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
24. R. Romero, J. R. Ramos-Barrado, F. Martin, and D. Leinen, “${\text{Nb}}_2{\text{O}}_5$ thin films obtained by chemical spray pyrolysis,” Surface and Interface Analysis, vol. 36, no. 8, pp. 888–891, 2004. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
25. R. S. Meltzer, S. P. Feofilov, B. Tissue, and H. B. Yuan, “Dependence of fluorescence lifetimes of ${\text{Y}}_2{\text{O}}_3$:${\text{Eu}}^{3+}$ nanoparticles on the surrounding medium,” Physical Review B, vol. 60, no. 20, pp. R14012–R14015, 1999. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar
26. A. Speghini, M. Bettinelli, P. Riello, S. Bucella, and A. Benedetti, “Preparation, structural characterization, and luminescence properties of ${\text{Eu}}^{3+}$-doped nanocrystalline ${\text{ZrO}}_2$,” Journal of Materials Research, vol. 20, no. 10, pp. 2780–2791, 2005. View at: Publisher Site | Google Scholar

Copyright

Copyright © 2007 Daniele Falcomer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.