Luminescence performance of laser synthesized Al2O3:Eu3+ nanophosphors depending on synthesis conditions

Al2O3:Eu3+ nanophosphors were prepared by laser vaporization method in a flowing mixture of Ar/He and O2. Luminescence properties of Al2O3:Eu3+ nanophosphors are predominantly determined by Eu3+ ions red emission with inhomogeneously broadened bands in the region of 550-750 nm corresponding to 5D0 →7FJ transitions of Eu3+ (J = 0 - 4). Hypersensitive electric dipole transition 5D0 →7F2 dominates in the spectrum and is responsible for the red emission. The effect of crystallite size on luminescence properties of Al2O3:Eu3+ nanocrystals was observed. It was shown that the introduction of oxygen during the synthesis improves the luminescence performance. The obtained chromaticity coordinates and high absolute QY (~ 14%) indicate the possibility of using red nanophosphors based on Al2O3:Eu3+.

Studies on the photoluminescence and thermoluminescence properties of CaZrO3:xEu3+ phosphor for dosimetric application

Series of CaZrO3:xEu3+ (x=0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04 and 0.05) phosphors have been prepared by low temperature sol-gel auto combustion method. The structure and morphology of the samples were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and field-emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM). The energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscope (EDX) was employed to analyze the elemental composition of the phosphor. The XRD patterns indicated that the sample was single phase at 350 ◦C with a perovskite structure. The optimum temperature for the single- phase and crystalline phosphors of CaZrO3:xEu3+ was 700 ◦C. Study of photoluminescence (PL) at room temperature showed that the phosphors can be excited by light with a wavelength of 391 nm. The results of emission spectrum showed that the red luminescence of CaZrO3:xEu3+ due to electric dipole transition of 5D0→7F2 was dominant at wavelength of 615 nm and weaker transition at wavelength of 590 nm which was due to magnetic dipole transition of 5D0→7F1. For the thermoluminescence (TL) study the prepared sample irradiated by X-ray lamp, the TL curve was then recorded at fixed heating rate of 2 ◦C/s. The TL glow curve showed well single peak at a temperature of 165 ◦C. The effect of Eu3+ concentration at fixed X-ray exposure time was studied and maximum TL occurred at x=0.02. Also the variation of TL intensity with X-ray time (5 to 15 min) showed linear response with dose. The TL glow peak shows more stability and less fading in prepared phosphor which is suitable for TL dosimetry.

Green Synthesis of Metal Nanostructures and Its Nonlinear Optical Properties

Simple green synthesis of metal nanoparticles (Ag NPs) was prepared by using Raphanussativus leaf extract. This extract acts as reduce and stabilizing agent. The formation of silver NPs was confirmed and characterized by XRD, UV–visible absorption spectrum, TEM, and FTIR. The luminescence enhancement and quenching of Eu3+and Sm3+ ions were observed in the presence of silver NPs. The luminescence enhancement is owing to arise in the electric-dipole transition with alteration of the field around Ln3+ ions. Nonlinear studies in femtosecond (fs) and picosecond (ps) time scales have been studied by using the Z-scan technique. Third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility of silver nanoparticles was obtained with Degenerate Four-Wave Mixing (DFWM) in the fs regime. The lifetimes of lanthanum complexes were increased by the concentration of silver NPs and decreased for further silver. The high enhanced luminescence and nonlinear studies of green synthesized silver nanoparticles can be used in optics and bio applications.

THE COORDINATION COMPOUNDS Gd (III) AND Dy(III) WITH SOME β-DIKETONES

New complexes of Dy (III) and Gd (III) with b-diketones containing unsaturated and aryl substituents were synthesized. Metal polymers based on synthesized complexes were obtained by the method of radical polymerization. The composition and structure of synthesized complexes and metal polymers are established. It is shown that during polymerization the coordination environment of the central ion remains unchanged. The spectral-luminescent cha­racteristics of the synthesized compounds were studied. The presence of water molecules in the immediate coordination environment causes a low intensity of emission of monomeric dysprosium complexes. In the luminescence spectra of metal polymers, there are bands magnetic dipole transition (4F9 → 6H15/2) and electric dipole transition (4F9 → 6H13/2). The close energies of the triplet level of the ligand and the resonant level of the dysprosium ion cause low emission characteristics of the synthesized dysprosium complexes.

Helium incorporation induced direct-gap silicides

The search of direct-gap Si-based semiconductors is of great interest due to the potential application in many technologically relevant fields. This work examines the incorporation of He as a possible route to form a direct band gap in Si. Structure predictions and first-principles calculations show that He and Si, at high pressure, form four dynamically stable phases of Si2He (oP36-Si2He, tP9-Si2He, mC18-Si2He, and mC12-Si2He). All phases adopt host–guest structures consisting of a channel-like Si host framework filled with He guest atoms. The Si frameworks in oP36-Si2He, tP9-Si2He, and mC12-Si2He could be retained to ambient pressure after removal of He, forming three pure Si allotropes. Among them, oP36-Si2He and mC12-Si2He exhibit direct band gaps of 1.24 and 1.34 eV, respectively, close to the optimal value (~1.3 eV) for solar cell applications. Analysis shows that mC12-Si2He with an electric dipole transition allowed band gap possesses higher absorption capacity than cubic diamond Si, which makes it to be a promising candidate material for thin-film solar cell.

Nonreciprocal second harmonic generation in a magnetoelectric material

Mirror symmetries are of particular importance because they are connected to fundamental properties and conservation laws. Spatial inversion and time reversal are typically associated to charge and spin phenomena, respectively. When both are broken, magnetoelectric cross-coupling can arise. In the optical regime, a difference between forward and backward propagation of light may result. Usually, this nonreciprocal response is small. We show that a giant nonreciprocal optical response can occur when transferring from linear to nonlinear optics, specifically second harmonic generation (SHG). CuB2O4 exhibits SHG transmission changes by almost 100% upon reversal of a magnetic field of just ±10 mT. The observed nonreciprocity results from an interference between magnetic-dipole and electric-dipole SHG. Although the former is inherently weaker than the latter, a resonantly enhanced magnetic-dipole transition has a comparable amplitude as a nonresonant electric-dipole transition, thus maximizing the nonreciprocity. Multiferroics and magnetoelectrics are an obvious materials platform to exhibit nonreciprocal nonlinear optical functionalities.

Metal Ions Doping for Boosting Luminescence of Lanthanide-Doped Nanocrystals

With the developing need for luminous materials with better performance, lanthanide-doped nanocrystals have been widely studied for their unique luminescence properties such as their narrow bandwidth emission, excellent chemical stability, and photostability, adjustable emission color, high signal-to-background ratio, deeper tissue penetration with less photo-damage, and low toxicity, etc., which triggered enthusiasm for research on the broad applications of lanthanide-doped nanocrystals in bioimaging, anti-counterfeiting, biosensing, and cancer diagnosis and treatment. Considerable progress has been made in the past few decades, but low upconversion luminescence efficiency has been a hindrance in achieving further progress. It is necessary to summarize the recently relevant literature and find solutions to improve the efficiency. The latest experimental and theoretical studies related to the deliberate design of rare earth luminescent nanocrystals have, however, shown the development of metal ion-doped approaches to enhance the luminescent intensity. Host lattice manipulation can enhance the luminescence through increasing the asymmetry, which improves the probability of electric dipole transition; and the energy transfer modulation offers a reduced cross-relaxation pathway to improve the efficiency of the energy transfer. Based on the mechanisms of host lattice manipulation and energy transfer modulation, a wide range of enhancements at all wavelengths or even within a particular wavelength have been accomplished with an enhancement of up to a hundred times. In this mini review, we present the strategy of metal ion-doped lanthanide nanocrystals to cope with the issue of enhancing luminescence, overview the advantages and tricky challenges in boosting the luminescence, and provide a potential trend of future study in this field.

Magic Wavelengths for Optical-Lattice Based Cs and Rb Active Clocks

Active clocks could provide better stabilities during initial stages of measurements over passive clocks, in which stabilities become saturated only after long-term measurements. This unique feature of an active clock has led to search for suitable candidates to construct such clocks. The other challenging task of an atomic clock is to reduce its possible systematics. A major part of the optical lattice atomic clocks based on neutral atoms are reduced by trapping atoms at the magic wavelengths of the optical lattice lasers. Keeping this in mind, we find the magic wavelengths between all possible hyperfine levels of the transitions in Rb and Cs atoms that were earlier considered to be suitable for making optical active clocks. To validate the results, we give the static dipole polarizabilities of Rb and Cs atoms using the electric dipole transition amplitudes that are used to evaluate the dynamic dipole polarizabilities and compare them with the available literature values.

Energy levels and transition probabilities of N+, F3+, and Ne4+ ions

Term energies, oscillator strengths, transition probabilities, and transition wavelengths among the low-lying states of (1s2)2s22p2, 2s22p3p, 2s2p3, 2s22p3s, and 2s22p3d 1,3,5L L = S, P, D, F in N+, F3+, and Ne4+ ions were calculated by using the multiconfiguration Rayleigh-Ritz variation method and restricted variation method. The transition oscillator strengths and transition probabilities for the electric dipole transitions are both given in length and velocity gauges. Deviations between these two gauge values are discussed. The calculated atomic parameters are in good agreement with the observed experimental results and other theoretical data. Furthermore, the uncertainty of each electric dipole transition is estimated. Several uncertainties of transition parameters are improved when comparing with values from national institute of standards and technology NIST database. Atomic parameters presented in this paper should be useful for identifying the levels as well as for precise spectral modeling in astrophysical and laboratory plasmas in the future work.

Optical Investigation of Eu3+ Doped Bi12GeO20 (BGO) Crystals

The spectroscopic properties of Eu3+ doped Bi12GeO20 (BGO) sillenite bulk crystals that were grown by the low-thermal-gradient Czochralski technique (LTG Cz) were investigated. The absorption spectra and the emission properties have been measured at room temperature (300 K) and at 10 K. Luminescence was observed both due to the direct Eu3+ ion excitation, as well as under UV excitation due to the energy transfer between Bi3+ and Eu3+ ions. Bi3+ → Eu3+ energy transfer mechanisms in Eu3+:BGO doped host were investigated. The Ωλ parameters, as well as radiative lifetimes, were calculated based upon the Judd-Ofelt formalism. The branching ratios and electric dipole transition probabilities were also determined, based upon the obtained experimental results. Luminescence has been observed from the 5D0,1,2 levels of Eu3+, with emissions from the 5D0 level being the strongest. The strongest observed luminescence band corresponds to the 5D0 → 7F0 transition at 578.7 nm. Reasons for the strong presence of the theoretically forbidden 5D0 → 7F0 emission were investigated.