Sensitive detection of excited energy levels in rare-earth optical materials by a magneto-optical resonant excitation technique

Abstract

An optical method for the sensitive detection of excited energy levels in rare-earth luminescent materials is developed based on the magnetic field induced photoluminescence (PL) enhancement phenomenon observed in Er3+:YVO4 crystals. Since the PL intensity of rare-earth luminescent materials is sensitive to the excitation efficiency, continuous tuning of the excitation laser wavelength under a magnetic field could result in a mapping of PL enhancement peaks vs excitation wavelength. This enables us to figure out the fine energy levels and the corresponding Lander g factors of materials, such as Er3+:YVO4 crystal as an example. Comparison between this method and the Zeeman splitting technique demonstrates that the proposed technique is a powerful solution to detect the fine energy structures and Lander g factors of rare-earth luminescent materials.