Abstract
Energy conversion, involving UV and Vis absorption to generate near infrared (NIR) emission at 1000 nm from nanostructured Pr3+/Yb3+ co-doped SiO2-Nb2O5 for solar cell application was the main focus of this work. The synthesis, structural and optical characterization of Pr3+/Yb3+ co-doped 70SiO2-30Nb2O5 nanocomposites and planar waveguides prepared by the sol gel method are reported. The influence of the rare earth content and thermal annealing on the crystallization process and the luminescence properties was studied. The excitation spectra revealed the energy transfer between the Pr3+ and Yb3+, involving mainly the 3P2 level of Pr3+ ions. Multiphonon decay and cross relaxation processes take place at higher rare earth concentration and annealing temperature, which increases the 1D2 level population and consequently the NIR emission from the Pr3+ ions. The nanostructured Pr3+/Yb3+ co-doped SiO2-Nb2O5 nanocomposites and waveguides show interesting NIR emission and optical properties for photonic applications.
Highlights
Rare earth doped materials for photonic applications have been increasingly reported on literature in a huge number of applications such as light emitting,[1,2] biomedical,[3,4,5] telecommunications,[6,7] solar cells,[8,9] among others.Considering the different rare earth ions, praseodymium (Pr3+) shows a complex electronic structure, with many absorption bands in the UV, visible and near infrared (NIR)ranges
A large background was observed for S1 and S2 nanocomposites annealed at 900 °C in Figure 1a, which corresponds to amorphous silica host, with the JCPDS Card number 029‐0085
As the lanthanides content rise, better defined peaks patterns appeared, which can be attributed to crystallization of orthorhombic Nb2O5 that orthorhombic crystalline phase (T-phase) (JCPDS 01-071-0336), corroborating with previous studies on Er3+-doped SiO2‐Nb2O5 nanocomposites and waveguides annealed at the same temperature.[27,28]
Summary
Rare earth doped materials for photonic applications have been increasingly reported on literature in a huge number of applications such as light emitting,[1,2] biomedical,[3,4,5] telecommunications,[6,7] solar cells,[8,9] among others.Considering the different rare earth ions, praseodymium (Pr3+) shows a complex electronic structure, with many absorption bands in the UV, visible and near infrared (NIR)ranges. An additional band at 1300 nm was observed, which can be attributed to 1G4 → 3H5 of Pr3+ ions, indicating that the 1G4 level is populated and can contribute to NIR emission around 1000 nm.
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