Luminescence properties of La2O3:Eu3+ nanophosphor prepared by sol–gel method

•La2O3 and La2O3:Eu3+ nanoparticles are synthesized by low temperature sol–gel method.•Gamma irradiated TL glow curve of La2O3:Eu3+ shows linear response with dose.•TL emission shows bright red emission at 619 nm.

Undoped and Eu3+ doped La2O3 nanophosphor are synthesized by low temperature sol–gel technique. The synthesized samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and average crystallite size is found to be ∼18 nm and ∼23 nm for undoped and Eu3+ doped La2O3 respectively. Gamma ray irradiated undoped La2O3 shows high intense thermoluminescence (TL) glow peak at 640 K and weak TL glow peak at 443 K and the high intense peak intensity is sub linear increase with γ-dose. Whereas Eu3+ doped La2O3 nanophosphor show a prominent TL glow peak at 640 K and its TL intensity linearly increases up to 1 kGy. The kinetic parameters are estimated using glow curve deconvoluted (GCD) technique. TL emission of γ-ray irradiated Eu3+ doped La2O3 show peaks at 508, 586, 619 and 706 nm are attributed to Eu3+ transition peaks.