Optical Properties of Pure and Europium-doped YVO₄ Phosphor

Nanocrystals of pure and Eu-doped YVO4 phosphor is synthesized by co-precipitation method and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared red Spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Photoluminescence (PL). The XRD patterns showed the tetragonal phase. SEM showed that the particles are small and agglomerated. FTIR spectrum showed the characteristics of the V-O bonds ranging from 761 to 861 cm-1. The PL spectra of pure YVO4 sample showed blue emission band in the range 406-510 nm and it is attributed to the de-excitation of electrons from the filled oxygen 2p levels in the valence band to the empty vanadium 3d levels of the conduction band. The Eu-doped YVO4 sample showed strong emission at 618nm (red) at an excitation of 340nm