An alternate spin-coating strategy toward high-quality polycrystalline thin Lu2O3: Eu3+ film fabrication

Europium-doped Lutetium oxide (Lu2O3: Eu3+) polycrystalline films have been successfully fabricated on cleaned silicon (100) substrates by routine and alternate spin-coating techniques. X-ray diffraction (XRD), photoluminescence (PL) spectra, field emission electron scanning microscope (FE-SEM) are employed to characterize the as-fabricated films. The SEM observation reveals that the thickness and porosity of the film fabricated by the alternate spin-coating are superior to that by routine spin-coating, i.e. the thickness and porosity increase 95% and reduce 26%, respectively, resulting in 72% enhancement of the emission intensity. According to theoretical calculation and crystallographic analysis, the dominated 5D0-7F2 emission of Eu3+ can be assigned to the main non-inversion site occupancy. •An alternate spin-coating method was firstly carried out for Lu2O3: Eu3+ film fabrication.•The denser and thicker Lu2O3: Eu3+ polycrystalline film was achieved by the optimized spin-coating method.•The emission intensity of the film fabricated by the optimized technique enhances as much as 72%.•Emission spectral features of Lu2O3: Eu3+ associated with Eu3+ sites occupancy was illustrated via VASP calculation and crystallographic analysis.