Sol-gel synthesis and photoluminescence of LaPO4:Eu3+ nanorods

Monoclinic LaPO4 nanostructures with uniform rod shape have been successfully synthesized by a simple sol-gel method. The procedure involves formation of homogeneous, transparent, metal-citrate-EDTA gel precursors, followed by calcination to promote thermal decomposition of the gel precursors to yield the LaPO4 nanoparticles. Their morphologies and structures were characterized by XRD, TEM, TG-DSC and HRTEM. The results indicate that single monoclinic phase LaPO4 nanorods are readily obtained at 800 ? within 3 h. Furthermore, photoluminescence (PL) characterization of the Eu3+-doped LaPO4 nanocrystals was carried out. The effects of calcination temperatures and Eu3+ doping content on the PL properties were elaborated in detail. Room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) characterization reveals that the optical brightness as well as the intensity ratio of 5D0-7F1 to 5D0-7F2 is highly dependent on the calcination temperature, and the Eu0.05La0.95PO4 nanophosphor shows the relatively promising PL performance with the most intense emission.