Design of highly sensitive ratiometric thermometry with time-gated technique

Abstract

In order to further improve the sensitivity of the luminescent thermometers, a time-gated ratiometric thermometry was constructed on the basis of time-gated luminescence intensity ratio via time-resolved technique and carried out using Sm3+ doped LiCa3ZnV3O12. The host emission with thermal quenching and Sm3+ emission were used as temperature responsive signal and reference signal, respectively. It is demonstrated that, for thermal quenching, the time-gated luminescence intensity can exhibit more drastic temperature dependence than the commonly used steady state luminescence intensity. Benefiting from this, high relative sensitivity was obtained in the entire investigated temperature range and the maximum reaches up to 6.21 % K−1 at 420 K. The operating temperature range can be extended by adjusting the delay time and the gating time. The excellent sensing performance indicates that the proposed strategy is a promising method for achieving highly sensitive thermometry in wide operating temperature range.