Size-Dependent High-Pressure Behavior of Pure and Eu3+-Doped Y2O3 Nanoparticles: Insights from Experimental and Theoretical Investigations.

We report a joint high-pressure experimental and theoretical study of the structural, vibrational, and photoluminescent properties of pure and Eu3+-doped cubic Y2O3 nanoparticles with two very different average particle sizes. We compare the results of synchrotron X-ray diffraction, Raman scattering, and photoluminescence measurements in nanoparticles with ab initio density-functional simulations in bulk material with the aim to understand the influence of the average particle size on the properties of pure and doped Y2O3 nanoparticles under compression. We observe that the high-pressure phase behavior of Y2O3 nanoparticles depends on the average particle size, but in a different way to that previously reported. Nanoparticles with an average particle size of ~37 nm show the same pressure-induced phase transition sequence on upstroke and downstroke as the bulk sample; however, nanoparticles with an average particle size of ~6 nm undergo an irreversible pressure-induced amorphization above 16 GPa that is completed above 24 GPa. On downstroke, 6 nm nanoparticles likely consist of an amorphous phase.