Hydrothermal synthesis, characterization and optical properties of novel fishbone-like LaVO4:Eu3+ nanocrystals

Novel fishbone-like LaVO4:Eu3+ nanostructure has been successfully fabricated via a facile and surfactant-free hydrothermal route at 160 °C. The obtained samples were characterized using X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution field-emission transmission electron microscope (HRTEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) method, Infrared spectroscopy (IR), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV–vis) and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). The TEM and XRD results showed that numerous secondary branches vertically grew from the main stem and formed tetragonal LaVO4 nanostructure with a fishbone-like morphology. Further studies revealed that the pH value of hydrothermal solution played a crucial role in the morphology evolution of LaVO4 nanocrystals. The room temperature photoluminescence spectrum of fishbone-like LaVO4:Eu3+ nanocrystal exhibited a stronger red emission at about 617 nm than the samples with other shapes. A possible growth mechanism of fishbone-like LaVO4:Eu3+ was also briefly discussed.