Growth and optical properties of thulia-doped cubic yttria stabilized zirconia single crystals

Upconversion Emission in Tm/Er/Yb Co‐Doped Yttria Stabilized Zirconia Single Crystals

“…This result should be contrasted with that for the Tm 3+ /YSZ system where maximum luminescence intensity was observed with 0.5 mol% Tm 2 O 3 . [13] The green and red emissions from Er 3+ decreased monotonically with increasing Tm 3+ content in an energy transfer mechanism that is similar to that of Tm 3+ -Er 3+ -Yb 3+ in Y 2 Ti 2 O 7 [33] and Ga 2 O 3 -Bi 2 O 3 -PbO-GeO 2 glasses. [34] Thus, both Tm 3+ and Er 3+ affect the luminescence properties of one another when both are doped into the YSZ crystal matrix.…”

“…This result represents a combination of a number of factors, including quenching of Tm 3+ at higher concentrations, and the effectiveness of energy transfer between Er 3+ -Tm 3+ and Yb 3+ -Tm 3+ . However, the fact that the Tm 2 O 3 concentration at which the intensity starts to decline is considerably lower than that seen in Tm 3+ -doped YSZ (0.50 mol%) [13] demonstrates the importance of energy transfer between the lanthanide ions in the current triply doped system. Furthermore, the intensities of both the green and red emissions decreased progressively with increasing Tm 3+ as a result of decreases in the population of the Er 3+ 2 H 11/2 , 4 S 3/2 , and 4 F 9/2 states, either by transfer of energy to Tm 3+ or by increasing nonradiative relaxation between the Tm 3+ 1 G 4 and 2 F 2,3 states.…”

“…As illustrated by the powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns for the 0.150 mol% Tm/Er/Yb:YSZ samples in Figure 2, the diffraction peaks from the crystal samples were appreciably sharper than those from the corresponding ceramics, as expected for greater crystallinity [the FWHM of (111) peak was 0.163 in the ceramic, but just 0.093 in the crystal], and no other peaks were observed, which indicates the absence of any other crystalline phase, and shows that the lanthanide and Y 3+ ions were successfully incorporated in the zirconia lattice. [13] The diffraction peaks for the x mol% Tm/Er/Yb:YSZ crystal samples are shown in Figure 3. All are similar, and the peaks at 30.08°, 34.80°, 50.06°, 59.42°, 62.36°, and 73.38°correspond to the (111), ( 200), ( 220), (311), (222), and (400) planes of cubic ZrO 2 (JCPDS 04-006-5589).…”

“…[7][8][9][10][11] UC luminescence has been observed with several lanthanide ions, which have been shown to be capable of emitting visible light under NIR excitation, and Er 3+ and Tm 3+ are frequently used as UC luminescence centers, because of their plentiful excited state energy levels and narrow emission bands. Moreover, Er 3+ produces green and red emissions, [12] while Tm 3+ produces blue and red emissions, [13] so that various colors can be modulated in a controlled manner by combining appropriate concentrations of these rare earth ions.…”

“…This problem has now been overcome by using the optical floating zone method, which can produce crystals of YSZ with good optical transparency and few defects. [13,22,23] Previous work has described the luminescence properties of Tm 3+ [13] and Er 3+ [12] doped YSZ single crystals, both individually and in combination with Yb 3+ , which is able to function as a sensitizer for upconversion luminescence. [24] Thus, for example, upconversion emission has been observed in Tm 3+ /Yb 3+ co-doped oxyfluorosilicate glasses.…”