The luminescence properties of CaF2 nanoparticles with various sizes (20–140 nm) are studied upon the excitation by VUV and x-ray quanta in order to reveal the influence of ratio of mean free path and thermalization length of charge carriers and nanoparticle size on the self-trapped exciton luminescence. The luminescence intensity for exciting quantum energies corresponding to optical creation of exciton and to the range of electronic excitation multiplication is not so sensitive to nanoparticle size as for quanta with energy of Eg < hν < 2Eg. The dependences of luminescence intensity on nanoparticle size at the excitation by quanta of various energies are discussed in terms of electron-phonon and electron-electron scattering lengths and energy losses on surface defects.
The dependence of X-ray excited luminescence intensity on BaF2 nanoparticle size was studied. A sharp decrease of self-trapped exciton luminescence intensity was observed when the nanoparticle size is less than 80 nm. The main mechanism of the luminescence quenching is caused by the escape of electrons from the nanoparticles. Escape of electrons from nanoparticles is confirmed by the considerable increase of luminescence intensity of the polystyrene scintillator with embedded BaF2 nanoparticles comparing with pure polystyrene scintillator.
The influence of the BaF 2 nanoparticle size on the intensity of the self-trapped exciton luminescence and the radiative core-valence transitions is studied by the luminescence spectroscopy methods using synchrotron radiation. The decrease of the self-trapped exciton emission intensity at energies of exciting photons in the range of optical exciton creation (h E g ) is less sensitive to the reduction of the nanoparticle sizes than in the case of band-to-band excitation, where excitons are formed by the recombination way. The intensity of the core-valence luminescence shows considerably weaker dependence on the nanoparticle sizes in comparison with the intensity of self-trapped exciton luminescence. The revealed regularities are explained by considering the relationship between nanoparticle size and photoelectron or photohole thermalization length as well as the size of electronic excitations. V C 2013 AIP Publishing LLC. [http://dx.
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