Controlling the morphology of micro/nanomaterials precisely enable us to manipulate their properties as desired. Therefore, understanding the complex growth mechanism of micro/nanomaterials, regulating and controlling their morphology and related luminescent properties are the focuses of chemistry and materials science. In this paper, we have firstly prepared five different morphologies of zinc borate (Zn6O(OH)(BO3)(3):Eu(III), ZBEu) phosphor by hydrothermal method, which were characterized by EDS, XRD, TG-DTA, FT-IR, SEM and TEM. Different morphologies of ZBEu were obtained via adjusting some of the reaction parameters, and the growth mechanisms of five kinds of morphologies were illustrated in detail. Photoluminescence (PL) analysis manifested that sphere-like ZBEu exhibited the strongest PL intensity in the five morphologies under the same doping concentration. The reasons why different morphology influences the PL intensity are also discussed in detail. Meanwhile, the influences of the doped Eu (III) concentrations and prepared time on the luminescent properties of ZBEu phosphor have also been investigated. The results indicate that Zn6O(OH)(BO3)(3) could serve as a new good hydrated borate matrix for light-emitting materials. (C) 2017 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.