Site Occupancy and VUV–UV–Vis Photoluminescence of the Lanthanide Ions in BaY2Si3O10

Abstract

This work provides a scheme to investigate the site occupancy and the luminescence properties of lanthanide ions in BaY2Si3O10. The Rietveld refinement of the samples indicates that the lanthanide ions preferably occupy the Y3+ sites in BaY2Si3O10. It is confirmed that valence state of lanthanide ions is stable at +3 in all doping samples. The site-dependent spectroscopic properties of Ce3+ and Eu3+ are studied in VUV–UV–vis spectral region at low temperatures, and the polarization effect on Ce3+ luminescence decay is evaluated. The results indicate that the lanthanide ions experience the similar polarization effect when substituting the Y3+ sites in BaY2Si3O10. The Stokes shift of Ce3+ luminescence becomes larger as Ce3+ doping content increases. Eu3+ f–f line-shape change has not been observed in the spectra as Eu3+ content increases. It demonstrates that the change of the electrostatic binding effect in the lattice has little effect on the ligand polarization of the central lanthanide ion. Finally, a m...