The solution combustion synthesis of nanophosphors

Nanophosphors are defined as nano-sized (1-100mn), insulating, inorganic materials that emit light under particle or electromagnetic excitation. Their unique luminescence properties provide an excellent potential for applications in radiation detection and imaging. Herein, solution combustion synthesis (SCS) is presented as a method to prepare nanophosphor powders, while X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), photoluminescence (PL), photoluminescence excitation (PLE), and other techniques were used to characterize their structural and optical properties. The goal of this work is to synthesize bright, high-quality powders of nanophosphors, consolidate them into bulk materials and study their structural and optical properties using XRD, TEM, PL, and PLE. SCS is of interest because it is a robust, inexpensive, and facile technique, which yields a significant amount of a wide variety of oxide materials, in a short amount of time. Several practical nanophosphors were synthesized and investigated in this work, including simple oxides such as Y{sub 2}O{sub 3}:Bi, Y{sub 2}O{sub 3}:Tb, Y{sub 2}O{sub 3}:Eu and Gd{sub 2}O{sub 3}:Eu, complex oxides such as Gd{sub 2}SiO{sub 5}:Ce, Y{sub 2}SiO{sub 5}:Ce, Lu{sub 2}SiO{sub 5}:Ce, Zn{sub 2}SiO{sub 4}:Mn, and Y{sub 3}Al{sub 5}O{sub 12}:Ce. Results demonstrate that altering the processing parameters such as water content of the precursor solution, ignition temperature, fuel type and amount, and post-synthesis annealing can significantly improve light output, and that it is possible to optimize the luminescence output of oxyorthosilicates by reducing the amount of silica in the precursor mixture