International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT), ISSN: 23488190

th
st
ICRTIET-2014 Conference Proceeding, 30 -31 August 2014

Gd2O3 Nanoparticles: Effect on Photoluminescence Studies

Shwet Kumar Rinwa1, Sahil Chhabra2
Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT-BHU, Varanasi, Uttar-Pradesh, India
2
Department of Chemistry, IIT-KGP, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India

1. INTRODUCTION
Nanotechnology is almost a household word now-adays, or at least some word with Nano in it, such as
nanoscale, nanoparticle, nanophase, nanocrystal, or
nanomachine. Nanoparticles are the simplest form of
structures with sizes in the range of 1-100 nm. These
include fullerens, metalclusters and large molecules
such as proteins.
Rare-earth doped semiconductors are used as
luminescence materials. Usually, efcient energy
transfer from semiconductor host to rare-earth ions
gives the enhancement in luminescence intensity.
Semiconductor hosts such as SnO2, TiO2, and ZnO are
usually used.13 However, such host materials have
limitations because of the large ionic radii mismatch
between metal ion in semiconductor and rare-earth ion
dopant e.g., Sn4+ in SnO2 has r=0.7 and Eu3+ has
r=0.9 .4 In general, rare-earth ions occupy the
surface of semiconductor particles and do not occupy
the lattice of semiconductor. Due to this, only energy
transfer from semiconductor to rare-earth ion takes
place through surface; thereby it could not improve the
luminescence intensity of rare-earth ion. In addition to
this, concentration-quenching effect occurs even for a
few percentages of rare-earth ions. Such limitations
can be avoided if host and rare-earth ions form solid
solutions. Solid solution is possible only when metal
ions of host and rare-earth ions have similar ionic radii.
In this aspect, Y2O3 , Lu2O3, and Gd2O3 are potential
host materials, which can make solid solutions with
rare earth ions even at large concentration with or
without change in crystal structure.

absorption of photons of electromagnetic radiation,

and then return to the ground state with emission of
light. Thus, photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy is
concerned with the monitoring of light emitted from
molecules/atoms. This technique involves recording of
the excitation and emission spectra of the sample at
particular wavelengths.
It is known from the literature that cubic lattice of
Gd2O3 absorbs at 235nm, while Gd3+ absorbs at 277
and 277 nm due to transition from 8S7/2 to 6I7/2 and 7F0
to 5L6 electronic levels respectively. The principal
emission band occurs at 611nm for the cubic phase.
The transition is due to electric dipole allowed
transition and is strongly affected by the surrounding
environment. Eu3+ also emits at 591nm due to the
magnetic dipole allowed transition which is largely
unaffected by the surrounding environment. The
intensity ratio of the electric dipole allowed transition
5
D07F2 to that of the magnetic dipole allowed
transition 5D07F1 defines the asymmetric ratio and
hence the electronic environment around Eu3+. We
have produced Eu3+ doped Gd2O3 nanoparticles using
fuel deficient glycine-nitrate-combustion method. The
cubic phase of Gd2O3 is usually stabilized under such
condition. The structure is retained even after doping it
with 4% Eu3+, as evident from the PL studies, which
indicates of the formation of a single phasic solid
solution of the two (see Fig. 10 (a).

2. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

PHOTOLUMINESCENCE STUDIES
Photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy is a contactless,
nondestructive method to probe the electronic structure
of materials. The phenomenon of re-emission of
previously absorbed radiation is termed as
luminescence.
In
photoluminescence,
the
molecules/atoms raise to higher energy excited state by

Divya Jyoti College of Engineering & Technology, Modinagar, Ghaziabad (U.P.), India

59

International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT), ISSN: 23488190
th
st
ICRTIET-2014 Conference Proceeding, 30 -31 August 2014

Fig. 1: Emission spectra of (a) Gd2-xEuxO3 (x= 0.01,

0.04, 0.06, and 0.08) upon excitation at 275nm, (b) A
typical excitation spectra for emission at ~611nm.
The corresponding excitation profile is typically shown
in the inset (b). The intensity of the emission band at
~610nm, upon excitation at ~275nm, increased linearly
with the increasing concentration of Eu in the sample
(see Fig. 11) say up to 3% but then decreased
indicating concentration induced quenching of
luminescence at higher concentration of Eu.

Fig. 2: Variation of emission intensity with Eu

concentration

3. CONCLUSIONS
1. Phase analysis shows that cubic Gd2O3 was
formed under this condition.
2. The doped samples exhibited a strong emission
band at ~610nm when excited at ~275nm. The
luminescence intensity increased almost linearly
with increasing Eu3+ concentration up to 3% but
then decreased indicating quenching effect at
higher concentration of Eu3+.

REFERENCES
1. http://cnx.org/content/m38357/latest/?colle
ction=col10699/latest
2. ww.nrel.gov/pv/measurements/photolumin
escence_spectroscopy.html

Divya Jyoti College of Engineering & Technology, Modinagar, Ghaziabad (U.P.), India

60