Photoluminescence and dielectric properties of pure/Yb-doped SrZrO3 crystals

High quality SrZrO3 nanocubes have been successfully synthesized via a facile hydrothermal method using Sr(NO3)(2) and Zr(NO3)(4).5H(2)O as raw materials. Then, the Yb-doped SrZrO3 were also fabricated by solid state reaction using the as -synthesized pure SrZrO3. The phase structure, morphology, composition and specific surface area of the samples were investigated by XRD, FESEM, EDS, TEM, FTIR, Raman and BET techniques. The as -synthesized SrZrO3 nanocubes distributed homogeneously and displayed sharp edges with an average particle size of about 100 rim. In addition, the dielectric loss value of the pure SrZrO3 at 1 MHz was only 0.05 when the temperature rose from 25 degrees C to 550 degrees C, indicating a good dielectric property at high temperature. Meanwhile, the band gap of SrZrO3 could be reduced by about 0.3 eV after Yb3+ doping, where Yb3+ mainly occupied Sr2+ position (A site doping). Besides, all of the pure and Yb-doped SrZrO3 samples exhibit violet light emission centered at 423 rim (excited at 372 nm), which was originated from material intrinsic defects.