Comparison between upconversion response of $Er^{3+}$ sensitised with $Yb^{3+}$ in various oxidic ceramic hosts

Abstract

The upconversion process for the $Er^{3+}$ ion, when irradiated with IR photons at 980 nm, strongly depends upon the presence of the sensitizer $Yb^{3+}$ ions. There are many studies analyzing the properties of the upconversion process for various crystalline ceramic matrices, but these, in their overwhelming majority, focus on only one compound. Comparative studies are very scarce, and the treatment of each case is limited. The purpose of this study is the comparison of the upconversion response of $Er^{3+}$ in some $Er^{3+}$:$Yb^{3+}$-doped oxidic ceramics. This comparison helps to observe aspects of the phenomena that are common across the cases, like the variation of red-green intensity ratios when the sensitizer's $Yb^{3+}$ concentration is increased, offering hints about the mechanism by which $Er^{3+}$ is sensitized by $Yb^{3+}$. Sol-gel methods were used to obtain doped oxidic ceramics, which were characterized by XRD and SEM and their upconversion spectra were measured. There is a good correlation between the relative and absolute concentrations of the activator and sensitizer species and the intensities of the emission lines in the visible spectra. We observed that the ratios between emission intensities in the green band (510 - 580 nm) and red band (640 - 700 nm) (i.e., the spectral content) show similarities between different host crystals for $Er^{3+}$ and $Yb^{3+}$, which are indications that, regardless of the crystalline medium of hosting, the dopant ions interact in some specific and similar ways, and a hypothesis explaining this is suggested.