Synthesis of rare earth doped Si3N4 nanowires with excellent luminescence properties by plasma-assisted direct nitridation method

Si ₃N ₄ nanowires doped with rare earth ions (such as Ce ³⁺, Tb ³⁺, Eu ²⁺ and Eu ³⁺ ) were synthesized by plasma assisted direct nitridation method using Si, rare earth oxides and N ₂ as raw materials. The prepared doped Si ₃N ₄ nanowires were characterized by XRD, EDS, XPS, SEM and TEM. The obtained single-crystal doped Si ₃N ₄ nanowires have uniform diameters of about 50–100 nm and lengths of more than 10 µm. The photoluminescence (PL), PL decay curves as well as thermal quenching behaviors of doped Si ₃N ₃ nanowires were systematically investigated. This work provides an effective strategy for doping large-size functional atoms in Si ₃N ₄ nanowires.