Structural, morphological and photoluminescence properties of β-Ag2MoO4 doped with Eu3+

In this work, we report the investigation on β-Ag(2-3x)EuxMoO4 (x = 0.0; 0.0025; 0.005; 0.0075, and 0.01 mmol) materials prepared using the coprecipitation method. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Rietveld refinement analysis, and Raman spectroscopy confirmed that all of the synthesized β-Ag(2-3x)EuxMoO4 samples were perfectly monophasic, with spinel-like cubic structure. The results obtained in the morphological analysis indicate that the insertion of the Eu3+ ion into the β-Ag2MoO4 matrix favors the formation of surface defects and suggests that in higher concentrations of dopant the particles become more geometrically defined. The photoluminescence analysis (PL) was performed using two excitation sources: krypton laser and xenon lamp. Through the emission and excitation spectra it was observed that β-Ag2MoO4 exhibits broad band in the blue region, and as the concentration of Eu3+ increases this emission is gradually suppressed, giving rise to an intense emission with narrow and well-defined lines in the red region, confirming β-Ag2MoO4 as a good matrix capable of sensitizing and stabilizing the red emission of the Eu3+ ion. In addition, all other characterizations demonstrate that the replacement of Ag+ by Eu3+ ions caused structural, morphological, and optical changes with lattice disturbances in the short, medium, and long ranges.