Synthesis, Thermoluminescence and Photoluminescence Study of Gd³⁺ Doped La₂Zr₂O₇ Phosphor

Abstract

Thermoluminescence (TL) and photoluminescence (PL) properties of the Gd³⁺ doped lanthanum zirconium phosphor (La₂Zr₂O₇:Gd³⁺) are reported in this work. Gd³⁺ doped La₂Zr₂O₇ (LZO) phosphor has been prepared via a high temperature solid state reaction method and it was prepared by using H₃BO₃ (as flux) and the preliminary materials were La₂O₃, ZrO₂ and Gd₂O₃. The results of the XRD study shows that La₂Zr₂O₇:Gd³⁺ phosphor has the cubic structure with 51.68 nm average crystallite size. The TL studies were carried out for the prepared phosphors using UV radiation (UV 254 nm), and a single glow peak was found in this study. Herein to extract the information about the positions of the TL emission at this work the peak shape methods are usage and the maximum peak exhibit the general order kinetics. In TL study the effect of UV exposure was investigated, it was found that it showed linearity with dose, which is helpful in TL dosimeters. The PL emission peaks of Gd -doped LZO phosphors were found to be in the region 450-650 nm, which was due to the 4f-4f transitions of Gd³⁺. More intense peaks at 468, 539, 589 and 627 nm were found at room temperature under excitation at 276 nm. Here the afterglow and photoluminescence behaviour of the Gd doped LZO phosphor is also reported.

Keywords:

• Solid state reaction
• Thermoluminescence
• Photoluminescence
• Phosphor