Fabrication and photoluminescence properties of color-tunable light emitting lanthanide doped GdVO 4 hierarchitectures

The flower-like GdVO 4 :Ln 3+ ( Ln 3+ =Eu 3+ , Dy 3+ , Sm 3+ , Tm 3+ ) hierarchitectures have been successfully synthesized on a glass slide substrate through a one-pot hydrothermal route assisted by disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (Na 2 H 2 L, where L 4- =(CH 2 COO) 2 N(CH 2 ) 2 N(CH 2 COO) 2 4- ). A high density and ordered flower-like GdVO 4 :Ln 3+ hierarchitectures grew epitaxially on glass substrate. The as-prepared flower-like architectures with the size about 6 μm are constructed by the numerous radially oriented single-crystalline nanorods with the width from 20 nm to 200 nm and the length from 500 nm to 3 μm. The morphologies, the thickness, and the density of as-grown flower clusters can be readily tuned by tailoring the growth time and Na 2 H 2 L/Gd 3+ molar ratio. The possible formation mechanism of flower-like GdVO 4 :Ln 3+ hierarchitectures is discussed on the basis of the results from the controlled experiments under hydrothermal conditions. Because of an energy transfer from vanadate groups to dopants, the flower-like GdVO 4 :Ln 3+ ( Ln 3+ =Eu 3+ , Dy 3+ , Sm 3+ and Tm 3+ ) superstructures showed strong characteristic dominant emissions of the Eu 3+ , Dy 3+ , Sm 3+ and Tm 3+ ions at 617 nm ( 5 D 0 → 7 F 2 , strong red), 575 nm ( 4 F 9/2 → 6 H 13/2 , yellow), 604 nm ( 4 G 5/2 → 6 H 7/2 , orange-red) and 476 nm ( 1 G 4 – 3 H 6 , blue) under ultraviolet excitation, respectively.Further, the emission color of the product can also be tuned by selecting the dopant Ln 3+ with characteristic emissions and varying the concentration ratio of co-doping activators. This approach could be extended to the fabrication of hierarchical structures for other oxide micro/nanomaterials, and may provide a general way to achieve multicolor-tunable emission for many applications.