Comparative study of the luminescence properties of macro- and nanocrystalline MgO using synchrotron radiation

MgO nano-powder with an average crystallite size of nanoparticles ranging 10-15 nm was synthesized using the extractive-pyrolytic method and was studied by room temperature VUV spectroscopy under synchrotron radiation excitation. Comparative analysis of their luminescent properties with that of macrocrystalline powder analogues and an MgO single crystal, grown by the arc-fusion method, has been performed under excitation by pulsed VUV synchrotron radiation. Special attention was paid to VUV spectral range, which is not reachable with commonly used lamp and laser sources. A considerable blue shift of about ∼0.3 eV in the excitation spectra of 2.95 eV emission band, was revealed in nanocrystalline MgO samples.