Preparation of Rare-Earth Doped Zirconia Nanoparticles via Supercritical Hydrothermal Method for Luminescence Properties
We report preparation of Tb3+ or Eu3+ doped zirconia nanoparticles by sub- and supercritical hydrothermal reaction and luminescence properties. Experiments were performed by a flow-type hydrothermal reaction system. We investigated the effect of the reaction temperature on crystal structure, particle size and photo-, electro-luminescence properties. Reaction temperature was varied in the ranges of 150 to 400 C and reaction pressure was fixed to 30MPa. Characteristics of the products were performed by XRD, TEM, SEM-EDS and PL, EL measurements. The product transformed from amorphous zirconium hydroxide to tetragonal ZrO2 with an increase in the reaction temperature, regardless of the doped ion species. The ZrO2:Eu particles obtained at 400C were spherical with around 5 nm in diameter. ZrO2:Eu nanoparticles obtained under supercritical water condision showed typical photoluminescence spectra of f-f transition of Eu3+; however ZrO2:Tb nanoparticle obtained under the same condition showed no photoluminescence. Furthermore, the ZrO2:Eu nanoparticles obtained at 400 C showed high electroluminescence properties at electric field of 350V and 1kHz.