Luminescence properties of Eu 2 O 3 -doped ZrO 2 –Y 2 O 3 single crystals

• Published in: CrystEngComm 2022-11, Vol.24 (43), p.7669-7676
• Main Authors: Ta, Shengdi, Zhang, Huiting, Wu, Wenxia, Wang, Yazhao, Zhang, Peng, Cheng, Zeyu, Xu, Shoulei, Goodman, Bernard Albert, Deng, Wen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1466-8033; 1466-8033
• DOI: 10.1039/D2CE01054B

The synthesis, structure, and optical properties are reported for a series of yttria-stabilized zirconia crystals in which some Y 3+ was replaced by Eu 3+ . These crystals were grown by the optical floating zone (OFZ) method and were transparent without inclusions, cracks, or bubbles. They were all exclusively in the cubic phase, whereas the corresponding ceramic samples had a mixture of monoclinic and cubic phases. Absorption spectra showed a charge transfer band at 268 nm and a series of narrow peaks in the range 308–540 nm from Eu 3+ f–f transitions. The crystals were efficiently excited at 393 nm, and exhibited excellent orange-red photoluminescence (PL) centred at 610 nm, from the 5 D 0 → 7 F 1 transition. The maximum PL intensity was observed with crystals prepared with 2.00 mol% Eu 2 O 3 , and compared with other rare earth ions; Eu 3+ -doped ZrO 2 –Y 2 O 3 single crystals have a high concentration quenching threshold. The critical distance for Eu 3+ ions was calculated as 11.8 Å, which indicates that multipole–multipole interactions dominate the non-radiative energy transfer between Eu 3+ ions. Finally, the chromaticity coordinates (CIE) for all the samples were similar, and those for the (ZrO 2 ) 92 (Y 2 O 3 ) 6 (Eu 2 O 3 ) 2 crystal were ( x = 0.6339, y = 0.3657) with a colour purity >98%.