Manufacture and characterization of Dy2O3 nanoparticles via X-Ray diffraction, TEM and photoluminescence

Abstract

In this research, Dysprosium Oxide (Dysprosia) nanoparticles with the composition, Dy2O3, were prepared by using the combustion method. The precursor sol was obtained from Dysprosium Nitrate and Glycine was used as the fuel. The molar ratio of cation/glycine = 1.5 was used to prepare very fine powder of dysprosium oxide. The innovative aspect of this method is the preparation of Dy2O3 nanoparticles without applying calcination temperature. To study the effect of the heating and annealing on the structural and optical properties of dysprosia, three different calcination temperatures, 450°, 550° and 650°C were applied on the initial product (no-calcined sample). Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) were used for structural characterization and Photo Luminescence (PL) was used for studying optical properties of the samples. XRD patterns show the ideal cubic structure for all samples. The crystallite sizes were estimated from the broadening of XRD peaks, using Scherrer's formula. XRD estimated the crystallite sizes from 24 nm for no-calcined sample to 28 nm for the calcined sample at 650°C. TEM shows the sizes of the particles produced by this method ranged from 5 nm to 100 nm. The samples also exhibited room temperature PL, having a strong emission in the visible region. The band gap of the samples was measured by PL results.