Phase and luminescence behaviour of Ce-doped zirconia nanopowders for latent fingerprint visualisation

Abstract

Present work focuses on the phase evolution, emission behaviour of Ce-doped zirconia nanopowders, calcined under air and argon atmosphere and its application in latent fingerprint visualisation. The different concentration of Ce-doped ZrO2 nanoparticles were prepared via precipitation method using sodium borohydride and calcined at 600 °C under air and argon atmosphere. The tetragonal phase of zirconia was detected for all samples under air atmosphere. However, the crystalline phase of tetragonal zirconia was observed for above 1 mol% Ce-doped ZrO2 samples, calcined under argon atmosphere. A broad photoluminescence emission was observed in the UV and visible range for all samples due to 5D3/2 →7FJ transitions (J = 7/2 and 5/2) of Ce3+ ions. The increase of Ce-concentration causes more distortion in the tetragonal structure of zirconia, and provides an enhanced emission intensity under air atmosphere. However, the emission intensity was found to be similar under argon atmospheric condition due to lower crystallinity of t-zirconia. Further, all the samples lie in the violet-bluish region of the CIE-diagram. The latent fingerprint visualisation was explored using Ce-doped ZrO2 nanopowders on both non-porous and porous surface, and the obtained results validate its use in the forensic applications.