Monodispersed spherical Y₂O₃ and Y₂O₃:Eu³⁺ particles synthesized from modified homogeneous urea precipitation process

Monodispersed spherical Y₂O₃ powders are of great scientific interests as well as practical and technological applications. Here, the present study reports a modified homogeneous urea precipitation process to achieve monodispersed spherical Y₂O₃ powders using polyvinyl pyrrolidone(PVP-K30) as surface active agent. Owing to that of controlling the decomposition of urea and nucleation of metal ions with PVP-K30 as surface active agent during the precipitation process, the as-obtained precipitate precursor are monodispersed sphere with uniform particle size in a high Y³⁺ concentration about 0.5 M, which led to the formation uniform spherical Y₂O₃ particles after the calcining process at 800 °C for 2 h. The optical performance of spherical Y₂O₃: Eu³⁺ was also studied, which displayed strong red emission peak at 613 nm ascribed to ⁵D₀–⁷F₂ forced electric dipole transition of Eu³⁺. All these critical characteristics suggest that the as-obtained Y₂O₃ powders hold promising applications in bioimaging, solid-state lighting, display devices and functional ceramics.