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Desirable phosphors for lighting, scintillation and composite films must have good light absorption properties, high concentration quenching, high quantum efficiency, a narrow color emission, and so forth. In this work, we first show that undoped yttrium hafnate Y 2 Hf 2 O 7 (YHO) nanoparticles (NPs) display dual blue and red bands after excitation using 330 nm light. Based on density functional theory (DFT) calculations, these two emission bands are correlated with the defect states arising in the band-gap region of YHO owing to the presence of neutral and charged oxygen defects. Once doped with Eu 3+ ions (YHOE), the YHO NPs show a bright red emission, a long excited state lifetime and stable color coordinates upon near-UV and X-ray excitation. Concentration quenching is active when Eu 3+ doping reaches 10 mol% with a critical distance of ∼4.43 Å. This phenomenon indicates a high Eu 3+ solubility within the YHO host and the absence of Eu 3+ clusters. More importantly, the optical performance of the YHOE NPs has been further improved by lithium co-doping. The origin of the emission, structural stability, and role of Li + -co-doping are explored both experimentally and theoretically. DFT calculation results demonstrate that Li + -co-doping increases the covalent character of the Eu 3+ –O 2− bonding in the EuO 8 polyhedra. Furthermore, the YHOE NPs have been dispersed into polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to make transparent nanocomposite films, which show strong red emission under excitation at 270 and 393 nm. Overall, we demonstrate that the YHO NPs with Eu 3+ and (Eu 3+ /Li + ) doping have a high emission intensity and quantum efficiency under UV and X-ray excitation, which makes them suitable for use as phosphors, scintillators and transparent films for lighting, imaging and detection applications. 

The design and development of efficient and stable nuclear waste hosts has drawn intensive interest for long-lived lanthanides and actinides. A detailed investigation of their structure and potential structural evolution are crucial. In this study, we have synthesized lanthanum hafnate La 2 Hf 2 O 7 nanoparticles (NPs) doped with uranium at different concentrations (0–10%) and investigated their structural transition. We have discovered that in our La 2 Hf 2 O 7 :U NPs, the uranium dopants are stabilized at both U 4+ and U 6+ oxidation states in which the U 6+ oxidation state exists in octahedral uranate UO 6 6− form. We also confirmed that the U 4+ ions substituted the Hf 4+ ions with a lifetime of ∼1.0 μs and the UO 6 6− ions resided at the La 3+ sites with a lifetime of ∼9.0 μs. More interestingly, the proportion of the U 4+ ions in the La 2 Hf 2 O 7 :U NPs was higher than that of the UO 6 6− ions at low doping level, but at the doping level higher than 2.5%, the fraction of the UO 6 6− ions was greater than that of the U 4+ ions. Furthermore, we studied the structural phase transformation from order pyrochlore to cotunnite of these La 2 Hf 2 O 7 :U NPs with increasing uranium doping level, and found that ordered pyrochlore phase favors the U 4+ ions whereas disordered cotunnite phase favors the UO 6 6− ions. We further used in situ Raman spectroscopy to confirm the reversible cotunnite to pyrochlore phase transformation of the La 2 Hf 2 O 7 :10%U NPs at 900 °C. Therefore, this work demonstrated the successful development of uranium doped La 2 Hf 2 O 7 NPs and thorough characterization of the fundamental spectra of uranium ions, doping induced phase transformation, and structure–optical property correlation.