Influence of sodium dodecyl sulfonate (SDS) on the hydrothermal synthesis of YVO4:Eu3+ crystals in a wide pH range

In this work, a facile hydrothermal route has been proposed for the morphology-controllable preparation of Eu-doped yttrium orthovanadate (YVO4:Eu3+) powders in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfonate (SDS) as a template in a wide pH range. The structure, composition, morphology, and optical properties of the final products were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL), respectively. It was found that single phase YVO4:Eu3+ micro- and nanocrystals with different shapes can be fabricated at 180 °C for 24 h with suitable amount of SDS in a wide pH range. The formation mechanism and the influence of SDS on the morphology of YVO4:Eu3+ micro- and nanocrystals were investigated as a function of pH value. The PL measurement revealed that the samples with different morphologies exhibited different values for optical properties, especially soybean-like nanopowders showed a higher intensity compared to other samples with different morphologies due mainly to their high packing densities and low scattering of light.