Fabrication, structure and luminescence properties of Ce:Lu3Al5O12 polycrystalline films

Polycrystalline Ce3+ doped lutetium aluminum garnet (Ce:Lu3Al5O12, Ce:LuAG) films have been successfully fabricated by Pechini sol–gel method combined with spin-coating technique and characterized. X-ray diffraction (XRD) indicated that Ce:LuAG film begin to crystallize at 900 °C and well crystallized into garnet LuAG phase after being calcined at higher temperature. The atomic force microscope (AFM) observation revealed that the obtained films were uniform and crack-free, consisting of closely packed particles with an average size of 50–80 nm. The photoluminescence (PL) spectra showed the typical Ce3+ emissions and the intensity varies with the Ce3+ concentrations and reaches the maximum at doped with 1.2 mol%. The effect of heat-treatment temperature on the luminescent properties was also investigated.