Nano-crystals of various lanthanide fluorides prepared using the ionic liquid bmimPF6

Lanthanide fluorides are important materials for a wide spectrum of applications. In this work, nano-sized crystalline fluorides of nearly all of the lanthanides were prepared via a one-pot reaction using the ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate (bmimPF6) as both the solvent and as the fluorination agent and the appropriate lanthanide nitride as the source of the trivalent ion. The phase compositions of the samples (hexagonal, orthorhombic or a mixture of these) as well as the sizes of the nanocrystals were characterised by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and confirmed by high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). Fluorescence measurements were performed for all of the samples to gain insight into the optical properties of the samples.