Enhancement of Photoluminescence and Anomalous Thermal Quenching Behavior of Er/Yb/Zr co-doped BaTiO3 Ceramic

Abstract We report highly efficient and stable photoluminescence (PL) properties of Er/Yb/Zr co-doped BaTiO3 ceramic. With the sensitizing effect of Yb3+, the emission intensity of Er3+ in the green region was increased by 8.47 times under the optimized Zr4+ concentration. Strong thermal enhancement of emission at different wavebands was attained with different concentration of Zr4+. In addition, the PL thermal quenching behavior was suppressed by energy transfer and ligand distortion induced by Zr4+. The PL excitation spectra and decay curves also verified the efficient energy transfer between luminescent center and material. This work opens up a new way to improve the PL properties of Er3+ doped materials and provides a practical solution to inhibit the temperature quenching behavior.