Co-Dopant Influence on the Persistent Luminescence of BaAl2O4:Eu2+,R3+

Abstract

The R3+ (rare earth) co-dopants may have a surprisingly important role in persistent luminescence – enhancement of up to 1–3 orders of magnitude may be obtained in the performance of these phosphor materials – depending strongly on the R3+ ion, of course. In this work, the effects of the R3+ co-dopants in the BaAl2O4:Eu2+,R3+ materials were studied using mainly thermoluminescence (TL) and synchrotron radiation XANES methods. In BaAl2O4, the conventional and persistent luminescence both arise from the 4f7→4f65d1 transition of Eu2+, yielding blue–green emission color. The former, in the presence of humidity, turns to more bluish because of creation of an additional Eu2+ luminescence centre which is not, however, visible in persistent luminescence. The trap structure in the non-co-doped BaAl2O4:Eu2+ is rather complex with 4–5 TL bands above room temperature. With R3+ co-doping, this basic structure is modified though no drastic change can be observed. This underlines the fact that even very small changes in the trap depths can produce significant modifications in the persistent luminescence efficiency. It should be remembered that basically the persistent luminescence performance is controlled by the Boltzmann population law depending exponentially on both the temperature and trap depth.Some mechanisms for persistent luminescence have suggested the presence of either divalent R2+ or tetravalent RIV during the charging of the Eu2+ doped materials. The present XANES measurements on BaAl2O4:Eu2+,R3+ confirmed the presence of only the trivalent form of the R3+ co-dopants excluding both of these pathways. It must thus be concluded, that the energy is stored in intrinsic and extrinsic defects created by the synthesis conditions and charge compensation due to R3+ co-doping. Even though the effect of the R3+ co-dopants was carefully exploited and characterized, the differences in the effect of different R3+ ions with very similar chemical and spectroscopic properties could not be explained in a satisfactory manner. More work is – and perhaps a completely new approach may be – needed.