Sol–gel synthesis and photoluminescence of CaSiO3:Eu3+ nanophosphors using novel silicate sources

In this paper, seven kinds of silane coupling reagents were employed as silicate sources to prepare CaSiO3:Eu3+ phosphors by the sol–gel method. The different silicate precursors were used to adjust the microstructure and size of the resulting phosphors. The crystallite size of phosphors is in the range of 30–35 nm and some of them show regular microstructure after high-temperature thermolysis. The photoluminescence properties show that all of them exhibit the characteristic fluorescence 5D0→7FJ (J=0, 1, 2, 3, 4) of the Eu3+ ion and the strongest one is the red emission at 610 nm. Furthermore, the emission quantum efficiency (η) of the 5D0 Eu3+ excited state has been calculated to be around 33% from the emission spectrum and the lifetime of the Eu3+ first excited level (τ, 5D0).