Investigation of Structural and Luminescent Aspects of Sm3+ Activated Yttrium Niobium Titanate Phosphor for Optoelectronic Applications

The present study examines the structural, morphological, and photoluminescence properties of yttrium niobium titanate (YNbTiO 6 ) induced with trivalent samarium (Sm 3+ ) ion (YNT:Sm 3+ ) phosphors synthesized with the help of a high-temperature solid-state reaction (SSR) route. X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirmed the single-phase structure of the YNbTiO 6 (YNT) and Sm 3+ induced YNT lattices with an orthorhombic system ( Pbcn (60) space group). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed an irregular and agglomerated morphology, with nonuniform microscale particle formation in the synthesized YNT host lattice. Various vibrational linkages of the synthesized YNT host lattice were identified with the help of Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. Under ultraviolet (UV) and near-UV (n-UV) excitation, the synthesized YNT:Sm 3+ phosphors emit various characteristic peaks of Sm 3+ ions, and prominent emission peaks were observed in the orange-red region (610 nm). The colorimetric properties of the synthesized phosphors were determined under UV and n-UV excitations. The decay profile for the optimized YNT: x Sm 3+ ( x = 5.0 mol.%) phosphor exhibited bi-exponential behavior under n-UV excitation. These results indicate that the synthesized YNT:Sm 3+ phosphor is an excellent candidate for optoelectronic device applications.