Spectroscopic analyses of trivalent rare-earth ions doped in different host materials

Trivalent rare-earth (RE3+) ions of 4f n electronic configurations are found to possess potential applications in the field of optoelectronic and biophotonic technologies owing to their unique optical properties. They have been used as optical activators in a large number of solid-state laser host materials due to their rich energy level structure. This work focuses on the spectroscopic study of two RE 3+ ions, namely, trivalent erbium and neodymium (Er3+ and Nd3+, respectively), embedded in some important single crystal and nanocrystalline host materials including yttrium orthoaluminate (YAlO3), erbium oxide (Er2O3), yttrium oxide (Y2O3) and a combined host system of Y2O 3 and a vinyl polymer named Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA). Each one of these host materials are known to be unique for their characteristic properties such as chemical durability, thermal stability, optical clarity, wide band gaps, biocompatibility, and success as phosphors in various optoelectronic devices. The complete material characterization has been performed through morphology analyses using advanced microscopy techniques and spectroscopic analyses of the characteristic absorption and emission spectra by applying phenomenological crystal-field splitting and Judd-Ofelt techniques. The important spectroscopic parameters such as line strengths, radiative decay rates, and branching ratios have been obtained for the intermanifold transitions from the upper multiplets to the corresponding lower-lying multiplet manifolds 2S+1LJ of RE3+ ions doped in various host systems. Using the radiative decay rates, radiative life times are obtained and the experimental analyses of the fluorescent spectra yield the measured lifetimes of emitting metastable states. Finally, the results are compared with the previously published set of values for the same ions doped in similar type of host systems. Detailed analyses of the spectroscopic properties show that the studied systems RE3+ doped single crystals and nanocrystals can have tremendous applications in optoelectronic and biomedical research.