Synthesis and crystallization mechanism of europium-titanate Eu2Ti2O7

• Versatile route to nanocrystalline Eu2Ti2O7 was presented.
• The size of the formed nanocrystals was controllable from 20 nm to 100 nm.
• The nucleation process of xerogels was studied.
• The crystallization mechanisms from amorphous xerogels were determined.
• Fundamental information about the nucleation and crystal growth were evaluated.

The synthesis of nanocrystalline europium-titanate pyrochlore Eu2Ti2O7 by a generic sol gel approach is presented. The size of the formed nanocrystals was tailored from 20 nm to 100 nm. The nucleation process and the crystallization mechanism were studied. The activation energies of the crystallization process and crystal growth were calculated. It was found; from the calculated Avrami's parameters; that the crystallization process starts by homogenous nucleation followed by three dimensional growth. The activation energies of the crystallization process were about 700 kJ mol−1. The energy of nanocrystal growth was 26.5±3.9 kJ mol−1. The results present fundamental information about the crystallization behavior of RE2Ti2O7 prepared by the condensation of titanium alkoxides with inorganic salts of rare-earth elements.