Combustion Synthesis, Morphological and Optical Properties of Rare Earth Phosphates

The development of rare-earth phosphates synthesis and their application in optical devices is becoming a major area of research in recent past decades. Different soft-chemical routes have been adopted for the preparation of nanoscale materials. Recently, solution combustion synthesis has emerged as an extensive and earlier employed technique based on exothermic reactions along an aqueous or sol-gel media to produce nanophosphors. This chapter focus on the morphological and optical properties of rare earth monophosphates synthesized by the combustion route. The effects of chosen precursors, synthesis step, rare earth elements on structural, morphological, and optical properties of phosphors have been discussed based on X-ray diffraction, FTIR spectroscopy, Scanning electron microscopy images, photoluminescence excitation (PLE) and photoluminescence (PL), and the emission lifetime. The morphological and optical properties of rare earth monophosphate phosphors prepared by combustion technique are compared to those obtained by other methods.

Keywords: Combustion synthesis, Morphology, Phosphates, Photoluminescence, Rare earth elements.