Lanthanide-doped orthovanadate phosphors: Syntheses, structures, and photoluminescence properties

Abstract

A comprehensive systematic review is given of developments, trends, and advances over the past two decades in research on orthovanadates of monovalent, divalent, and trivalent metals, MI3VO4, MII3(VO4)2, and MIIIVO4, respectively. We give our perspective on the current status of the topic, and the main attention is focused on lanthanide ion (Ln3+)–activated orthovanadate-based nanostructured luminescent materials, downconversion and upconversion ones, and their reported chemical syntheses, crystal structures, and photoluminescence properties along with applications as phosphors, both existing and potential, are fully considered. In particular, downconversion and upconversion phosphors based on Ln3+-doped GdVO4 and upconversion phosphors of BiVO4, LaVO4, YbVO4, and LuVO4 are described in far more detail.