| AVS 54th International Symposium | |
| Electronic Materials and Processing | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session EM-WeA |
| Session: | Growth and Characterization of Complex Oxides |
| Presenter: | J. Dorman, University of California at Los Angeles |
| Authors: | Y. Mao, University of California at Los Angeles J. Dorman, University of California at Los Angeles J.P. Chang, University of California at Los Angeles |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
A molten salt synthetic method is described in this work for synthesizing rare-earth doped yttrium oxide (RE:Y2O3) and rare-earth zirconate/hafnate (RE2(ZrxHf1-x)2O7) (0≤x≤1), since it is one of the simplest, most versatile, and cost-effective approaches available for obtaining crystalline, chemically purified, single-phase powders at lower temperatures and often in overall shorter reaction times with little residual impurities as compared with conventional solid-state reactions. RE:Y2O3 are promising rare-earth-ion-activated phosphor materials with wide applications including amplifiers, lasers, waveguides, X-ray imaging, bioimaging, and field emission or electroluminescent displays due to their luminescent characteristics and stability in high vacuum. RE2(ZrxHf1-x)2O7 are of great interest in recent years for their possible applications as high-temperature heating elements, oxidation catalysts, thermal barrier coatings, nuclear waste hosts, and host materials for luminescence centers. The as-prepared nanoparticles have sizes around 100 nm for RE:Y2O3 and around 30 nm for RE2(ZrxHf1-x)2O7. They are thoroughly characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microsecopy (TEM), high resolution TEM (HRTEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and UV-vis spectroscopy to delineate the structure and composition of these nanoparticles. Their room temperature luminescent properties (photoluminescence and catholuminescence) are measured as a function of the particle size and distribution. In order to process these materials for device fabrication, they are made water soluble by surface modification of these nanoparticles with DMSA (2,3-dimercaptosuccinic acid). We will discuss the effect of these nano-coatings on the optical properties of the nanoparticles.