Technologically
relevant tetragonal/cubic phases of HfO
2
can be stabilized
at room temperature by doping with trivalent rare
earths using various approaches denoted generically as bulk coprecipitation.
Using in situ/ex situ X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy,
high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and in situ/ex situ
site-selective, time-gated luminescence spectroscopy, we show that
wet impregnation of hafnia nanoparticles with 10% Eu oxide followed
by mild calcination in air at 500 °C produces an efficient stabilization
of the cubic phase, comparable to that obtained by bulk precipitation.
The physical reasons behind the apparently conflictual data concerning
the actual crystallographic phase and the local symmetry around the
Eu stabilizer and how these can be mediated by luminescence analysis
are also discussed. Apparently, the cubic crystal structure symmetry
determined by XRD results in a pseudocubic/tetragonal local structure
around Eu determined by luminescence. Considering the recent findings
on wet impregnated CeO
2
and ZrO
2
, it is concluded
that CeO
2
, ZrO
2
, and HfO
2
represent
a unique case of a family of oxides that is extremely tolerant to
heavy doping by wet impregnation. In this way, the same batch of preformed
nanoparticles can be doped with different lanthanide concentrations
or with various lanthanides at a fixed concentration, allowing a systematic
and reliable investigation of the effect of doping, lanthanide type,
and lanthanide concentration on the various functionalities of these
technologically relevant oxides.