Crystal phase, shape and luminescence properties of LaPO₄:Eu³⁺ nanocrystals

Abstract

We demonstrated the change of shape and crystal phase of LaPO₄:Eu³⁺ nanomaterials by tuning the temperature of heating. The mechanism related to morphology control of LaPO₄:Eu nanorods/nanoparticles are proposed and discussed. We describe the "oriented attachment" growth mechanism for nanorod-to-nanoparticles transformation with increasing the temperature of heating. It is found that the photoluminescence properties of LaPO₄:Eu³⁺ nanostructures are sensitive to the crystal phase and shape. The drastic increase in luminescence intensity (12 times) and decay time increases from 2.66 to 3.34 ms with changing the shape (nanorod to nanoparticle) and crystal phase (hexagonal to monoclinic phase) for the samples prepared by emulsion based method. Our analysis suggests that the manipulation of the photoluminescence property can be done by changing the crystal phase of nanomaterials.