Gd2o3 Nannopowders Lab Report

Gd2O3 nanopowders doped with different concentrations of Er3+ and Yb3+ were synthesized using the combustion method. The starting reagents, Gd(NO3)3 6H2O, Er(NO3)3 5H2O, Yb(NO3)3 xH2O and NH2CH2COOH (glycine), which was used as a fuel in reaction, of an analytical grade were purchased from Sigma Aldrich and Alfa Aesar. The ratio of glycine to nitrate was kept as 0.56 [31, 32]. The appropriate amounts of the starting reagents were dissolved in a minimum amount of deionized water. The solution was then transferred to a muffle furnace and quickly heated up to 500oC. Once the combustion process takes place, foamy Gd2O3 nano-powders were obtained. Then some of the obtained powders were heat treated at 1000oC. The formulations of the samples are given in Table 1.
Bruker AXS D8 model (Cu Kα radiation)
One can see from Figure 2 and Table 2 that the FWHM of the size distributions decreases with increasing amount of the dopant ions. This observation shows that the presence of dopant ions makes the size distribution more uniform while decreases the sizes of the nano-powders. It is also seen that the change of the FWHM of the distribution is more prominent in non-annealed samples. It is also evident that the size distributions for non-annealed samples (small grains) have an asymmetrical shape with small FWHMs while the distributions of annealed samples (larger grains) become more symmetrical and their FWHMs are larger.
The representative SEM image of the G100-1000 nanopowders is given in Figure 3. The micrograph of the sample shows the agglomerated nanopowders with spherical morphology are relatively uniform and have average diameters of ~100 nm. The deviation in estimated sizes by SEM and XRD is due to the fact that XRD refers to single crystalline size while SEM refers to polycrystals. Spectroscopic