Lanthanide-doped lanthanum hafnate nanoparticles as multicolor phosphors for warm white lighting and scintillators

[Display omitted] •Facile and low temperature molten-salt synthesis.•Multicolor photo and radioluminescent phosphor.•Distinct Concentration quenching for different lanthanide dopant.•Eu/Dy distributed at La3+ and Hf4+ site whereas Tb3+ ions are localized only at Hf4+ site.•Warm white light is achieve by engineering the dopant ions and their concentration. Designing luminescent materials especially nanomaterials with multifunctional applications is highly challenging and demanding. In this work, we explored pyrochlore La2Hf2O7 nanoparticles (NPs) singly and triply codoped with Eu3+, Tb3+ and Dy3+. Under both ultraviolet and X-ray irradiations, the La2Hf2O7 NPs singly doped with Eu3+, Tb3+ and Dy3+ displayed red, green and yellowish-blue emission, respectively. The concentration quenching study revealed a non-radiative energy transfer in Eu3+ doped La2Hf2O7 NPs, which takes place via dipole-quadrupole mechanism. On the other hand, a dipole-dipole interaction prevails in Tb3+ and Dy3+ doped La2Hf2O7 NPs. Lifetime spectroscopy reveals the stabilization of Eu3+ and Dy3+ ions at La3+ site at low doping concentration whereas a fraction of them migrates to Hf4+ site at high doping concentration. For the La2Hf2O7:Tb3+ NPs, Tb3+ ions are localized at Hf4+ site at all doping concentrations. Furthermore, when triply codoped with Eu3+, Tb3+ and Dy3+ ions, the La2Hf2O7 NPs display beautiful warm white light as a new strategy for color tunability through doping percentage. To sum, our complete spectrum of studies on the structure, UV excited photoluminescence, concentration quenching, and local site spectroscopy of the La2Hf2O7:Ln3+ NPs suggests that they are potential candidates as single-component multicolor-emitting phosphors for lighting and scintillating applications.