Architectures of YF3:Eu3+ solid and hollow sub-microspheres: a facile arginine-assisted hydrothermal synthesis and luminescence properties

Solid and hollow YF3:Eu3+ spheres assembled by nanorods have been successfully synthesized via a facile arginine-assisted hydrothermal method and followed by a subsequent heat-treatment process. The experimental results reveal that the as-prepared YF3:Eu3+ spheres are composed of the nanorods with a diameter of 20–50 nm and a length of 200–500 nm, the morphologies of YF3:Eu3+ have been changed from solid to hollow spheres assembled by nanorods. With increase of hydrothermal temperature and time, the diameter of YF3:Eu3+ spheres can be controlled from 300 to 800 nm. The solid and hollow spheres show an intense orange red emission peak near 595 nm, corresponding to the 5D0 → 7F1 transition of Eu3+. The possible formation mechanism for the hollow spheres has been presented in detail. This amine acid-assisted method is very simple, economic and environmental friendly for organic-free solvent, which would be potentially used in synthesizing other hollow materials.