Novel fishbone-like LaVO4:Eu3+ nanostructure has been successfully fabricated via a facile and surfactant-free hydrothermal route at 160 degrees C. The obtained samples were characterized using X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution field-emission transmission electron microscope (HRTEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method, Infrared spectroscopy (IR), UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-vis) and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). The TEM and XRD results showed that numerous secondary branches vertically grew from the main stem and formed tetragonal LaVO4 nanostructure with a fishbone-like morphology. Further studies revealed that the pH value of hydrothermal solution played a crucial role in the morphology evolution of LaVO4 nanocrystals. The room temperature photoluminescence spectrum of fishbone-like LaVO4:Eu3+ nanocrystal exhibited a stronger red emission at about 617 nm than the samples with other shapes. A possible growth mechanism of fishbone-like LaVO4:Eu3+ was also briefly discussed. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.