New morphological development in Gd6O5F8:Yb3+,Tm3+ micro-particles and up-conversion luminescence property

The synthetic condition affects the corresponding emission intensity of up-conversion luminescence. Various morphologies of the Gd6O5F8:Yb3+,Tm3+ micro-particles, including size-controlled-hexagonal-prisms, certain-surface-hollow-tubes, football, spheres, ellipsoids, plates, hexagonal-flakes, snowflakes, rods, magneton, and bone, are obtained by adjusting the volume ratios of different alcohols to deionized water and the amount of additions (such as, PVP, EDTA, and EDTA-2Na) in the synthetic system. The amount and species of additions are investigated to be the dominating factors about the hexagonal-prism size and morphological evolution, respectively. Furthermore, corresponding to the up-conversion (UC) spectra of the Gd6O5F8:Yb3+, Tm3+ micro-particles with various morphologies and energy transfer processes between Tm3+ and Yb3+ ions have been investigated and discussed in detail. The results prove that the as-synthesized Gd6O5F8 are good host lattices for rare earth blue UC luminescence, which could find potential applications in the fields of solid state light, advanced functional micro-device and anti-fake mark.