Bluish emission of economical phosphor h-BN nanoparticle fabricated via mixing annealing route using non-toxic precursor

In the present work, a facile and economical mixing annealing approach was employed using a nontoxic precursor (boric acid and urea) and reactive atmosphere (Ar & N-2) at 1000 degrees C to produce high quality hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nano-particles. The preferred (002) orientations confirmed the hexagonal phase and average crystallite size <= 5 nm. The reactive environments tune the surface microstructure into 50-60 nm diameter microflakes (NFs) and 2-4 mu m length nano-sheets (NSs) for N-2 & Ar atmosphere, respectively. The chemical characteristics of the prepared nanoparticles have also been investigated in term of composition, bonding and chemical states. Optical studies revealed the applied atmosphere dependent optical properties i.e. optical band gap similar to 5.48 eV & 5.25 eV, emission band similar to 451 & 454 nm and CIE coordinates (0.2550, 0.2562) & (0.2543, 0.2516) indicate to bluish emission. These results present prodigious prospective of novel h-BN nanoparticles for various optically active practical applications.