NaYF4 Microstructure, beyond Their Well-Shaped Morphology

Godefroy Leménager , Sandrine Tusseau-Nenez (1) , Maud Thiriet (2) , Pierre-Eugène Coulon (3) , Khalid Lahlil (2) , Eric Larquet (2) , Thierry Gacoin (2)

1 ICMPE - Institut de Chimie et des Matériaux Paris-Est
2 LPMC - Laboratoire de physique de la matière condensée
3 LSI - Laboratoire des Solides Irradiés - Irradiated Solids Laboratory

Lanthanide doped nanoparticles are widely investigated for their optical properties. However, the sensitivity of the lanthanide ions to the local symmetry, useful when investigating structural environments, becomes a drawback for optimized properties in the case of poorly controlled crystallinity. In this paper, we focus on β-NaYF4 nanorods in order to provide a detailed description of their chemical composition and microstructure. The combination of detailed XRD analysis and TEM observations show that strong variation may be observed from particles from a same batch of synthesis, but also when considering small variations of synthesis conditions. Moreover, also the nanorods observed by SEM exhibit a very nice faceted shape, they are far from being monocrystalline and present significant local deviation of crystalline symmetry and orientation. All these structural considerations, sensitively probed by polarized emission analysis, are crucial to be analyzed for the development of optimal systems toward the targeted applications.

Mots clés: X-ray diffraction; crystalline structure; polarized luminescence

Domaines: Chimie; Matériaux

Godefroy Leménager, Sandrine Tusseau-Nenez, Maud Thiriet, Pierre-Eugène Coulon, Khalid Lahlil, et al.. NaYF4 Microstructure, beyond Their Well-Shaped Morphology. Nanomaterials, 2019, 9 (11), pp.1560. ⟨10.3390/nano9111560⟩. ⟨hal-02345184⟩