A new approach for the synthesis of Y
3
Al
2
Ga
3
O
12
(YAGG) nanophosphors allowing
the preparation
of crystallites with sizes starting from 45 nm is presented. The controllability
of the energy and trap density of the resulting material samples by
annealing temperature was confirmed by thermoluminescence (TL) measurements.
It has been shown that the annealing of samples at temperatures up
to 1300 °C does not cause any substantial growth of crystallites,
still remaining below 100 nm, but leads to changes in the activation
energy of the persistent luminescence (PersL) process. On the other
hand, annealing above 1400
°C results in grain growth on the submicron scale, which was
confirmed by X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) and electron transmission
microscopy (TEM) measurements. In addition, with an increase in the
molar ratio of urea to the total amount of metals used (
R
), qualitative changes are observed in the PersL process occurring
from the excited states of Cr
3+
and Pr
3+
ions.
This proves the influence of the synthesis process, in particular
of the metal complexation at its initial stage, on the final structure
ordering in the annealed materials. These observations are linked
to previously reported defects in the YAGG structure, leading to PersL.