Structural and luminescence properties of Eu3+ doped BaxSr1−xTiO3 (BST) nanocrystalline powders prepared by different methods

Eu3+ doped BaxSr1-xTiO3 (BST) nanocrystalline powders have been prepared using molten salts, sol-gel and hydrothermal techniques in order to compare their structural and luminescence properties. The sizes of the particles are around 50 nm for the BST powders obtained by the sol-gel and hydrothermal methods while they are around 400 nm for the samples prepared by the molten salts method. The Eu3+ doped BST samples show strong emission in the visible range. The luminescence spectra of the Eu3+ ions for the investigated samples depend strongly upon the preparation method. The luminescence bands are affected by a notable amount of inhomogeneous broadening. The broadening of the emission bands and the non-exponential behavior of the emission decay curves point to the presence of significant structural disorder