Synthesis and Luminescent Properties of Eu3+ Doped Lu2O3 Powders Using Micro-Emulsion
Europium-doped lutetium (Lu2O3:Eu3+ ) powders were prepared by micro-emulsion method. A small amount of an aqueous solution of Lu(NO3)3, Eu(NO3)3 and aqueous ammonia was slowly dropped into the water-in-oil micro-emulsion system (water / cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) / n-butyl alcohol and cyclohexane) under vigorous stirring at 80 °C. The precipitates were obtained by Ostwald’s ripening at 250 °C for 6 h, which were then heated at 400 °C, 600 °C and 800 °C. The SEM morphology showed that the powders were rods of about few hundred nanometers in length and 40 nm in diameter. The spectrograms of X-ray diffraction (XRD) demonstrated that the Lu2O3:Eu3+ crystallinity was enhanced with the increasing of temperature. The photoluminescence results revealed that the intense emission bands centered at 612 nm. This method provides a new way to obtain different morphology and luminescent properties of Lu2O3:Eu3+ powder.