Luminescence of europium doped silicon-substituted hydroxyapatite nanobiophosphor via a coprecipitation method

Abstract This paper reports a novel way of the synthesis of europium doped Si-substituted hydroxyapatite nanostructure to achieve strong and stable luminescence of hydroxyapatite nanophosphor, particularly, by applying an optimum annealing temperature. The synthesized Eu doped Si-HA was observed to have a nanowire structure. As synthesized specimen, the Raman shift spectra of the nanophosphor were the 962 cm−1 and 433 cm−1 peaks that were to be hydroxyapatite; however 949 cm−1, 970 cm−1, and 405 cm−1 when they were synthesized with annealing temperature of 1000 °C–1100 °C that was observed to be β-tricalcium phosphate phase (β-TCP) with additional peak at 452 cm−1 corresponding to hydroxyapatite. The transformation from HA to β-TCP structure of the europium doped Si-HA resulted in a significant enhancing luminescence of nanophosphor, which had potential applications in stable and biocompatible nanophosphor for light emission and nanomedicine.