Issue 4, 2022

Eu2+ emission from thermally coupled levels – new frontiers for ultrasensitive luminescence thermometry

Abstract

Designing luminescent thermometers operating in a broad T-range, spanning hundreds of degrees, presenting high thermal sensitivity and good resolution is one of the greatest challenges in the field. In this paper, we present SrB4O7:Eu2+, a novel luminescent thermometer, operating in the T-range of 11–600 K and presenting unprecedentedly high relative thermal sensitivity, i.e., up to ≈10.5%/K and ≈22.6%/K, using either Eu2+ luminescence decay time or intensity ratio as thermometric parameters, respectively. Such good performance classifies the SrB4O7:Eu2+ phosphor as the most sensitive inorganic luminescent thermometer ever reported. The temperature dependences of both luminescence intensity ratios and the emission decay time result from the same physical effect, i.e., thermal coupling of the lowest 5d1 excited level of Eu2+ and the 6P7/2 excited level of the 4f7 configuration of the dopant. The latter one is located ≈130 cm−1 below the 5d1. Such a strong coupling changes the contribution of the emission from the two levels, in response to the temperature change, but without any significant luminescence thermal quenching. This beneficial situation allows measuring spectra with a high signal-to-noise ratio, which lowers the uncertainty of the temperature measurement (improves resolution) in the whole operating T-range. The SrB4O7:Eu2+ material offers a broad operating T-range, as well as unprecedentedly high relative thermal sensitivity and low uncertainty of the temperature measurement.

Graphical abstract: Eu2+ emission from thermally coupled levels – new frontiers for ultrasensitive luminescence thermometry

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 okt 2021
Accepted
23 noy 2021
First published
24 dek 2021
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2022,10, 1220-1227

Eu2+ emission from thermally coupled levels – new frontiers for ultrasensitive luminescence thermometry

M. Sójka, M. Runowski, T. Zheng, A. Shyichuk, D. Kulesza, E. Zych and S. Lis, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2022, 10, 1220 DOI: 10.1039/D1TC05022B

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