Wet chemical synthesis of nanometer CeO2 with strong ultraviolet absorption property by in situ assembly of hybrid precursors

Composing rare earth nitrates, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) or polyacrylamide (PAM), urea and ammonia solution, the multicomponent hybrid precursors have been in situ assembled, where organic polymers (PVA or PAM) are used both as dispersing media and fuel. Then nanometer CeO2 phosphors have been prepared with the thermalysis and X-ray diffraction and scanning electronic microscope (SEM) show that these materials have the nanometer size of 40–100 nm. The strong ultraviolet absorption properties of nanometer CeO2 were studied firstly with excitation spectra and the results show that nanometer CeO2 exhibit broad absorption band at the long wavelength ultraviolet region of 300–450 nm. It is found that different dopant rare earth ions (Eu3+, Tb3+, Sm3+, and Dy3+, doping concentration=1 mol%) can influence the ultraviolet absorption property of nanometer CeO2. With increasing temperature of thermolysis, the ultraviolet absorption intensities increase.