Yb 3+ -doped rare-earth sesquioxide crystals are a class of promising laser materials due to their high host thermal conductivity, but the insufficient emission bandwidth limits their applications in ultrafast pulsed lasers. Yb 3+ -doped orthorhombic mixed rare-earth sesquioxides show an effective spectral broadening based on the solid solution mixing strategy and indicate the development potential in ultrafast lasers. Herein, high-quality orthorhombic Yb:GdScO 3 and Yb:LaLuO 3 crystals were grown by optimizing the composition of raw oxide materials. Unlike the nearly standard stoichiometric cationic ratio in Yb:GdScO 3 , Yb:LaLuO 3 shows a La/Lu ratio below 1, suggesting the presence of anti-site Lu La defects in the host lattice. The following spectral analysis and crystal-field calculation indicate that Yb:GdScO 3 has only one kind of luminescent Yb 3+ site, while Yb:LaLuO 3 has four types of Yb 3+ centers due to the anti-site effect. Furthermore, as for the same species of Yb 3+ -doped sites, Yb:LaLuO 3 demonstrates nearly two times of inhomogeneous spectral broadening as that of Yb:GdScO 3 , which renders a more promising application value in ultrafast lasers. This study elucidates the importance of understanding the structure−activity relationship between different Yb 3+ -doped orthorhombic sesquioxides and might provide a feasible route for exploring Yb 3+ -doped ultrafast laser gain materials.
Adjusting the local coordination environment of lanthanide luminescent ions can modulate their crystal-field splittings and broaden their applications in the relevant optical fields. Here, we introduced Eu3+ ions into the phase-change K3Lu(PO4)2 phosphate and found that the temperature-induced reversible phase transitions of K3Lu(PO4)2 (phase I ⇆ phase II and phase II ⇆ phase III, below room temperature) give rise to an obvious photoluminescence (PL) difference of Eu3+ ions. The Eu3+ emission mainly focused on the 5D0 → 7F1 transition in phase III but manifested comparable 5D0 → 7F1,2 transitions in the two low-temperature phases. On this basis, the change of Eu3+-doped concentration led to the phase evolution in Eu3+:K3Lu(PO4)2, which could stabilize two types of low-temperature polymorphs to the specific temperature by controlling the doping content. Finally, we proposed a feasible information encryption strategy based on the PL modulation of Eu3+:K3Lu(PO4)2 phosphors, which was caused by the temperature hysteresis of the relevant phase transition, exhibiting good stability and reproducibility. Our findings pave an avenue for exploring the optical application of lanthanide-based luminescent materials by introducing phase-change hosts.
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