Hollow sea cucumber-like TbF3 was successfully fabricated by a self-assembled hydrothermal method. The crystal structure, morphology and photoluminescence properties of the as-prepared TbF3 crystals were investigated. The results revealed that the as-prepared TbF3 sample has orthorhombic structure and composed of monodispersed 3D hollow sea cucumber-like particles. The possible formation mechanism for sea cucumber-like TbF3 is presented is detail. Additionally, the as-prepared sample possesses property of down-conversion photoluminescence. The excitation spectrum of TbF3 sample was obtained by monitoring the emission of Tb3+ at 545 nm was composed of the characteristics f-f transition lines within the Tb3+ 4f(8) configuration. Under the UV light irradiation, the emission spectrum exhibited four obvious lines centered at 491, 545, 588, and 620 nm, which was corresponding to the D-5(4) -> F-7(J) (J = 6, 5, 4, 3) transitions of the Tb3+ ions in the TbF3 nanoparticles. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.