Microstructural and photo luminescence studies on hydrothermally synthesized Ce-doped barium titanate nanocrystals

Nano-sized barium titanate (BT) and Ce-doped barium titanate samples were synthesized by simple hydrothermal technique at 150 °C from Ba(OH)2·8H2O, TiO2 and Ce(NO3)3·6H2O. The mean crystallite diameters (MCD) along (1 0 1) plane obtained from XRD data were in the range of 24–28 nm for pure and Ce-doped samples. The TEM micrographs confirmed the nano-size in similar range confirming the single crystallite nature of particles. The room temperature emission spectra of Ce-doped and un-doped barium titanate were studied under ultraviolet irradiation. For pure BT the two peaks appeared at 396 and 521 nm, respectively. In case of Ce-doped BT two peaks centered around violet and green region were observed and the green luminescence was found to be sensitive to Ce concentration in the prepared samples.