Sol–gel synthesis and photoluminescence of CaSiO 3:Eu 3+ nanophosphors using novel silicate sources

Abstract

In this paper, seven kinds of silane coupling reagents were employed as silicate sources to prepare CaSiO 3:Eu 3+ phosphors by the sol–gel method. The different silicate precursors were used to adjust the microstructure and size of the resulting phosphors. The crystallite size of phosphors is in the range of 30–35 nm and some of them show regular microstructure after high-temperature thermolysis. The photoluminescence properties show that all of them exhibit the characteristic fluorescence 5D 0→ 7F J ( J=0, 1, 2, 3, 4) of the Eu 3+ ion and the strongest one is the red emission at 610 nm. Furthermore, the emission quantum efficiency ( η) of the 5D 0 Eu 3+ excited state has been calculated to be around 33% from the emission spectrum and the lifetime of the Eu 3+ first excited level ( τ, 5D 0).