Surface temperature sensing of hot parts is necessary for machine design and qualification. For complex systems with moving parts and limited access as in a turbomachine, standard approach based on thermocouple or infrared thermometry are difficult if not non-practical to use. In such cases, thermal history methods using thermal paints or microcrystal are used to derived temperature maps off-line after a calibrated thermal event close to operational conditions. Under certain conditions, such thermosensitive phosphors can undergo permanent changes in their emission properties depending on both the temperature and duration of exposure of a past thermal event. A bijective relationship between a quantified luminescence characteristics (such as luminescence intensity and/or decay time) and the temperature over a wide temperature range, which is a requirement for unambiguously deriving thermal history maps, is however only obtained for some specific compositions. As the underlying mechanims of the photoluminescence alteration depend on the rare earth doping level, material structure and microstructure, these keypoints must be investigated in order to be able to finely tune the thermosensitive response of the pigment. In this work, the effects of dopant nature and concentration on the evolution of photoluminescence signal of titanium dioxide (TiO2) in the range 600°C-750°C was investigated. Titanium dioxide particles doped with various lanthanide ions (Eu3+, Dy3+, Er3+,Tm3+,Yt3+) at different doping levels were synthetized using a sol-gel procedure. The powders were then subjected to short time exposure at temperature between 600°C-750°C, and the photoluminescence properties and the microstructures were studied. The relative importance of the amorphous to crystalline transitions, phase transitions, and crystallite growth on the evolution of the photoluminescence intensity and decay time with exposure temperature is then discussed. The structural characterization by XRD was completed by Raman spectroscopy for the quantification of titania phases and the detection of minor phases, which were shown to be play an important role in the variation of luminescence properties.