Effect of annealing on the structural, optical and emissive properties of SrWO4:Ln3+ (Dy3+, Eu3+ and Sm3+) nanoparticles

•Rare-earth ions (Dy3+, Eu3+ and Sm3+) doped SrWO4 nanophosphors synthesized by polyol method.•Nanophosphors are highly crystalline in nature.•They show uniform morphologies.•On annealing the samples at 800 °C, the value of CIE coordinates shift to darker colors.•They can exhibit potential applications in the fields of display devices and LEDs.

Lanthanide ions, Ln3+ (Dy3+, Eu3+ and Sm3+) doped SrWO4 nanoparticles were synthesized using ethylene glycol (EG) as a capping agent as well as reaction medium. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) study reveals that all the Ln3+ (Dy3+, Eu3+ and Sm3+) doped samples are well crystalline in nature with a tetragonal scheelite structure of SrWO4 phase. TG study reveals that the nanophosphors are thermally stable. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy techniques were used to obtain the information about internal and external vibrational modes present in the SrWO4 structure. Optical properties were investigated using UV–vis and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The average crystallite size was calculated using Debye–Scherrer’s for as-prepared and 800 °C annealed samples and is found to be in the range of ∼35–70 nm.The luminescence intensity of Eu3+ doped SrWO4 nanoparticles under 364 nm excitation wavelength reveals that 5D0 → 7F2 transition at ∼613 nm (red) is more prominent than that of 5D0 → 7F1 transition at ∼590 nm (orange). Also upon excitation by UV radiation, the SrWO4:Dy3+ phosphor shows the yellow and blue transition lines appearing at ∼572 and 484 nm which are the characteristic electronic transitions of 4F9/2–6H13/2 and 4F9/2–6H15/2 emission line of Dy3+, respectively. Also Sm3+ doped SrWO4 nanophosphor shows its characteristic emission lines in the range of 550–720 nm, corresponding to 4G5/2 → 6HJ (J = 5/2, 7/2, 9/2 and 11/2) transitions of Sm3+ ions. The predominant orange red color can be attributed to 4G5/2 → 6H9/2 located at ∼642 nm. This is related to the polarizing effect due to the energy transfer from WO42- to the Eu3+, Dy3+ and Sm3+ sites, respectively.Effect of annealing on the photoluminescence properties of samples has been studied and it was found that luminescence intensity increases up to ∼3 times on heating the samples at 800 °C. This may be due to reduction in non-radiative decay channels pathways and reduced surface defects associated with the samples. These studies show that these Ln3+ (Dy3+, Eu3+ and Sm3+) doped SrWO4 nanophosphors may be used as potential candidates for the advancement in LEDs.

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