Luminous properties of Tb3+ in the ZrO2 and TiO2 nanoparticles

Tb2O3–ZrO2 and Tb2O3–TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized using the solvothermal method at mild temperature of 250 °C. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements have identified the particles. The size distribution of the zirconia is 4∼34 nm in the annealing temperature of 400 °C∼1200 °C and that of titania was slightly increased from 6.7 to 10.2 nm with increasing sintering temperature from 500 to 700 °C. The photoluminescence intensity of Tb3+ highly dependent on the sintering temperature. The photoluminescence of Tb3+ was disappeared due to the thermal diffusion of Tb3+ ions into the host material at 900 and 500 °C in zirconia and titania, respectively.