NaBaPO4:Eu 2+ and ZnAl2O4:Eu 3+ phosphors with different dopant content were prepared by solution-combustion (SC) and sol-gel (SG) method. SC route gives samples with high crystallinity, that does not always leads to increase in luminescent properties due to formation of admixture phases. In NaBaPO4 phosphor series, crystallite size reversly depends on admixture Ba3(PO4)2 phase content. Increase in europium concentration up to 10% lead to decrease of crystallite size in samples prepared by SC method, but increase of crystallite size in samples prepared by SG method. For ZnAl2O4:Eu 3+ , prepared by sol-gel technique, increase in Eu 3+ concentration leads to amorphization of structure.
IntroductionInorganic phosphors are widely used in modern life in a number of different applications such as light sources, lasers, electronic devices, medicine etc. Phosphor's luminescent properties determines their quality and applications. Luminescence depend on a number of factors, such as chemical composition, crystal structure, dopants, etc., and can be controlled using various synthetic technique and treatments [1][2][3][4]. It is well known, that for the efficient luminescence, especially cathodoluminescence, crystallite size is very important, since boundaries between crystallites play role of non-radiative recombination sites [3]. Influence of synthesis temperature, time on crystallite size was extensively studied for many phosphors, however effect of activator content on crystallite size is not a well known subject [4,5]. For example, effect of Eu 3+ concentration on crystal structure of Y2O3 phosphors, prepared by Pechini and solution-combustion methods were described [4,5]. It was shown that increase of dopant concentration leads to increase of crystallite size of Y2O3: Eu 3+ phosphor prepared by sol-gel method that was explained by acceleration the phenomenon of nucleation of crystals in the presence of impurities. However it is also known that increase of impurities concentration leads to increase in a number of nucleation centers and therefore decrease of crystallite size. In this work synthetic route influence on effect of dopant concentration on crystal structure and luminescent properties of phosphors prepared via different synthetic methods was studied. There were chosen sol-gel (SG) method, as one of the most well-known and widely used synthetic route, which however consists of several steps and is time consuming, and solution-combustion (SC) method, as fast and energy efficient technique. Zinc aluminate spinel and mixed sodium-barium phosphate were used as a host material with europium in three-and divalent states as dopant. NaBaPO4:Eu 2+ phosphor is known as chemically stable and promising material for W-LED application. ZnAl2O4 may be used as UV emitting