The effect of rare earth element (Er, Yb) doping and heat treatment on suspension stability of Y2O3 nanoparticles elaborated by sol-gel method

Abstract

Sol–gel processing was used to fabricate undoped and rare-earth (Er, Yb) doped very fine Y2O3 nanoparticles under supercritical drying conditions of ethanol using an autoclave and annealed at 500 °C and 800 °C for 2 h. The Er and/or Yb concentration is fixed at 5 mol % for doped and co-doped nanoparticles. The as-synthesized Y2O3 nanopowder was characterized by the X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) coupled with differential thermal calorimetry (DTA). The effects of solvent, heat treatment and the doping on the suspension stability of yttrium oxide (Y2O3) nanoparticles doped rare-earth elements (Er and Yb) were evaluated by UV-Visible spectroscopy, zeta potential measurement and particle size in suspension, thus, Hamaker 2 software. During this work, the particle analysis showed that the resulting nanoparticles had a pure cubic structure and nano-sized crystallites of about 8–38 nm. The heat treatment of the nanopowders causes a rapid decantation of the suspensions and the Er doped nanoparticles suspension had a good stability.