A simple process to synthesize sphere-shaped gadolinium gallium garnet nanoparticles for transparent ceramic

The citrate sol–gel method has been developed for the synthesis of sphere-shaped cubic-phase Gd3Ga5O12 (GGG) nanoparticles, which were obtained at low temperatures and dispersed uniformly. NH2OH·HCl was used as chelator, Ga(NO3)3·6H2O, Gd(NO3)3 and citric acid were used as starting materials, respectively. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) patterns were used to identify the GGG phase structure. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) investigations indicated that the as-synthesized products were composed of a large number of sphere-shaped nanoparticles with diameters of 40 nm. High-resolution transmission electron micrography (HRTEM) images showed that the as-synthesized sphere-shaped GGG were single-phase nanoparticles, whose interlayer spacing observed was 0.3087 nm. Also, the formation mechanism of sphere-shaped GGG nanoparticles in this work is provided.