Structural, luminescent and in vitro studies of europium-doped soda lime phosphate glasses

In this article, we have reported the effect of varying concentration of europium (Eu) in (50 - x)% P2O5-25% Na2O-24% CaO-% Eu2O3, where x = 1, 3, 5. The glass samples were synthesised via conventional melt-quench method. The impact of europium ion (Eu3+) on the structural, optical and luminescent properties of phosphate soda lime glasses has been studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transformed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive spectroscopy and photoluminescent techniques. The amorphous nature of glass samples was confirmed by XRD patterns. FTIR confirmed the presence of various functional groups. The emission spectra of synthesised samples exhibited intense emission peaks corresponding to Eu3+ under excitation at 393 nm. Among all the peaks, the maximum intensity was observed for 5D0 -> 7F2 transition. Judd-Ofelt (J-O) parameters (omega 2, omega 4) and other radiative parameters such as band width, radiative transition probabilities, stimulated emission cross-sections and branching ratio were determined from emission spectra. The other photometric parameters such as CIE coordinates and colour purity were also determined. Furthermore, cytotoxic studies were carried out on normal cell line human embryonic kidney cells (HEK-293) using MTT assay. Results showed that the prepared samples significantly enhanced growth in glass sample-treated cells as compared to control cells. These findings suggest that synthesised glass samples are biocompatible in nature and have potential for applications in display devices and biomedical research area. The synthesised samples exhibited sharp and intense emission spectra. Furthermore, the biocompatibility of synthetic glasses is studied on normal cell line human embryonic kidney cells (HEK-293) using MTT assay. The findings show that synthetic glasses samples are bi-functional in nature, that is, they can be used for display and biomedical applications.image