Simultaneously significant transparency enhancement and efficient temperature feedback achieved in AlON ceramic through luminescent rare earth doping

Abstract

Activator-doped aluminum oxynitride (γ-AlON) could provide an extremely versatile transparent ceramic with photothermal feedback, opening the door to many new applications and devices for use in extreme conditions. However, existing AlON transparent ceramics have failed to achieve temperature-responsive luminescence. To address this, a simple-to-implement luminescent rare-earth doping strategy for fabricating AlON transparent ceramic with efficient temperature feedback is proposed and demonstrated. Luminescent Pr2O3 serves as the illustrative example. Benefiting from the liquid phase formed by Pr2O3 and the thermal coupling between the 3P1 and 3P0 levels of Pr3+, AlON ceramics doped with Pr2O3 exhibit significantly elevated transparency and temperature-responsive luminescence. More importantly, the AlON:Pr ceramic can serve as photothermal feedback windows, which presents attractive performance. This paradigm fills an important gap in the AlON transparent ceramics for temperature feedback windows, and will inspire the controllable design of luminescent rare-earth doped AlON ceramics for use in harsh conditions.