Probing highly luminescent europium-doped lanthanum orthophosphate nanorods for strategic applications.

Abstract

Herein we have established a strategy for the synthesis of highly luminescent and biocompatible europium-doped lanthanum orthophosphate (La0.85PO4Eu0.15(3+)) nanorods. The structure and morphogenesis of these nanorods have been probed by XRD, SEM, and TEM/HRTEM techniques. The XRD result confirms that the as-synthesized nanorods form in a monazite phase with a monoclinic crystal structure. Furthermore, the surface morphology shows that the synthesized nanorods have an average diameter of ∼90 nm and length of ∼2 μm. The HRTEM images show clear lattice fringes that support the presence of better crystal quality and enhanced photoluminescence hypersensitive red emission at 610 nm ((5)D0-(7)F2) upon 394 nm wavelength excitation. Furthermore, time-resolved spectroscopy and an MTT assay of these luminescent nanorods demonstrate a photoluminescent decay time of milliseconds with nontoxic behavior. Hence, these obtained results suggest that the as-synthesized luminescent nanorods could be potentially used in invisible security ink and high-contrast bioimaging applications.