Fluorescence properties of Eu3+-doped alumino silicate glasses

Abstract

Alumino silicate glasses of a very broad range of molar compositions doped with 1⋅1020 Eu3+ cm−3 (about 0.2mol% Eu2O3) were prepared. As network modifier oxides Li2O, Na2O, K2O, MgO, CaO, SrO, BaO, ZnO, PbO, Y2O3 and La2O3 have been used. All glasses show relatively broad fluorescence excitation and emission spectra. For most glasses only a weak effect of the glass composition on the excitation and emission spectra is observed. Although the glasses should be structurally similar, notable differences are found for the fluorescence lifetimes. These increase steadily with decreasing mean atomic weight, decreasing refractive index and decreasing optical basicity of the glasses, which may be explained by local field effects. An exception from this rule are the strontium, barium and potassium containing glasses, which show significantly increased fluorescence lifetimes despite of their high refractive index, optical basicity and molecular weight. The non mono-exponential fluorescence decay curves as well as the fluorescence spectra indicate a massive change in the local surroundings of the doped rare earth ions for these glasses.