Polyol-mediated solvothermal synthesis and luminescence properties of CeF3, and CeF3:Tb3+ nanocrystals

Towards a Correlation between Structural, Magnetic, and Luminescence Properties of CeF3:Tb3+ Nanocrystals

“…It can be seen that the F to Ce ratio (of about 5.5) is relatively close to the four expected for Ce 0.75 F 3 phase ( Table 1 ), but higher than the three expected for CeF 3 , indicating Ce 3+ ion deficiency and lower Tb 3+ ion concentration than expected; XRD analysis has shown Ce 0.75 F 3 phase, i.e., Ce 3+ ion deficiency. We suppose that the reason is related to the NH 4 F amount used for the synthesis, since it plays a critical role in controlling the final morphology and size of the product [ 11 ]. In the present case, for the stoichiometric NH 4 F amount generally used, we obtained spherical nanoparticles about 15 nm in size ( Figure 2 ) with Ce 3+ ion deficiency as resulting from the EDX and XRD analyses ( Table 1 and Figure 3 ), this aspect having been overlooked by previous studies.…”

“…The Ce 3+ ion deficiency suggested that a higher NH 4 F amount is required to accomplish the reaction and the Tb 3+ -doping process. However, for higher NH 4 F content, different nanocrystals morphologies were obtained with hundreds of nm in size, accompanied by crystallinity and luminescence signal improvement [ 11 ]. Therefore, by using a stoichiometric NH 4 F amount, we obtained nanocrystals “with defects”, i.e., a Ce 0.75 F 3 nanocrystalline phase with lower “effective” Tb 3+ ions’ dopant concentration.…”

“…The photoluminescence properties and energy transfer mechanism for Tb 3+ -doped CeF 3 have been extensively investigated in CeF 3 [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ], and therefore, we do not address them in detail here. The energy levels of Tb 3+ allow an efficient energy transfer (ET) from the 5d-4f emission of the Ce 3+ ions, resulting in high light output ( Figure 6 —left).…”

“…It exhibits efficient UV absorption due to the allowed electric dipole 4f→5d transition of Ce 3+ ions and energy transfer to other rare-earth activators, which is useful for white LED phosphor applications [ 6 , 7 , 8 ]. In particular, various synthesis methods have been proposed for Tb 3+ -doped CeF 3 nanocrystals, and the photoluminescence properties and energy transfer mechanism have been extensively investigated [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]. A less-studied aspect is related to the magnetic properties, which are strongly correlated with its electronic structure, whereas for the rare-earth dopant ions, these are related to the unpaired electrons in the inner 4f sub-shell.…”

Effect of Thickness of CeF3 Layer on Electroluminescence Spectra of n‐Si/Diamond/CeF3/ITO Composite Films

“…Rare‐earth fluoride crystals have attracted much attention due to their excellent luminescence properties and application prospects in optical devices . The most evocative rare‐earth fluoride crystal is cerium fluoride (CeF 3 ), and CeF 3 is also considered to be a promising tunable laser material and scintillator material for its outstanding scintillation characteristics .…”