Patterning of YVO4:Eu3+ Luminescent Films by Soft Lithography

✍ Scribed by Wenxin Wang; Ziyong Cheng; Piaoping Yang; Zhiyao Hou; Chunxia Li; Guogang Li; Yunlu Dai; Jun Lin

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 770 KB
• Volume: 21
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1616-301X
• DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201001467

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Ordered arrays of luminescent YVO~4~:Eu^3+^ films with square (side length 19.17 ± 2.05 μm) and dot (diameter 11.20 ± 1.82 μm) patterns were fabricated by two kinds of soft lithography processes, namely, microtransfer molding (μTM) and microcontact printing (μCP), respectively. Both soft‐lithography processes utilize a PDMS elastomeric mold as the stamp combined with a Pechini‐type sol‐gel process to produce luminescent patterns on quartz plates, in which a YVO~4~:Eu^3+^ precursor solution was employed as ink. The ordered luminescent YVO~4~:Eu^3+^ patterns are revealed by optical micro­scopy and their microstructure, consisting of nanometer‐scale particles, is unveiled by scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) observations. Additionally, photoluminescence (PL) and cathodoluminescence (CL) were carried out to characterize the patterned YVO~4~:Eu^3+^ samples. A strong red emission as a result of ^5^D~0~–^7^F~2~ transition of Eu^3+^ was observed under UV‐light or electron‐beam excitation, which implies that combining soft lithography with a Pechini‐type sol‐gel route has potential for fabricating rare‐earth luminescent pixels for next‐generation field‐emission display devices.