ABSTRACT
With increased control and knowledge of preparation conditions, the desired properties for the final products can be significantly enhanced.
Yttrium indium germanate has a thortveitite structure that is a monoclinic system with a symmetry that is described by the space group, C2/m (No. 12), with cell parameters a = 6.8286 Å, b = 8.8836 Å and c = 4.9045 Å. The In3+ and Y3+ cations occupy the same octahedral site and form a hexagonal arrangement on the ab planes [8]. The hexagonally arranged InO6/YO6 octahedral layers are held together by sheets of isolated diorthogroups, which are constituted by two tetrahedrals that share a common vertex. In this compound, the Ge2O7 diorthogroup has C2h symmetry. This implies that the Ge-O-Ge angle is 180o, which is an important feature of the thortveitite structure [8]. In this study, La3+-doped YInGe2O7 powders are synthesized using a vibrating milled solid-state reaction with metal oxides. The effect of La3+ ion doping on the crystallinity and luminescent properties of pure YInGe2O7 powders are studied.
