Luminescence of novel terbium complex/inorganic/polymeric hybrid materials based on sol–gel technology

Highlights: ► A new kind of ternary rare earth/inorganic/organic polymeric hybrid materials with covalent bonds was prepared. ► Polyvinyl alcohol was introduced into the hybrids through the polycondensation reactions. ► The rare-earth complex and polymer were connected by the Si-O bonds. ► It is possible to provide an excellent route to obtain optical functional hybrid materials. - Abstract: In this paper, a new terbium complex/inorganic/polymeric molecular hybrid material was prepared and its optical properties were studied. At first, 4-nitrobenzoic acid was modified by (3-aminopropyl) trimethoxysilane to form a precursor and coordinated with terbium ion. Then it was polymerized with inorganic host tetraethoxysilane or polymer host polyvinyl alcohol and formed hybrid material. 1H NMR Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), scanning electron microscope and TGA were applied to characterize the structure of the precursor. UV–vis spectrophotometer and fluorescence spectra were applied to characterize the photophysical properties of the obtained hybrid material. The strong luminescence of Tb3+ substantiates optimum energy couple and effective intramolecular energy transfer between the triplet state energy of modified ligand bridge and emissive energy level of Tb3+.