Impact of different europium concentrations on the photo and radioluminescence properties of silicofluorophosphate glass for reddish-orange emitting and scintillating materials

Abstract

Silicofluorophosphate (PSEu) glasses doped with various amounts of Eu₂O₃ were fabricated by the melt quenching technique to know their potential use in reddish-orange lighting, especially in scintillator properties. Refractive indices, densities, and molar volumes of the PSEu glasses were obtained. Functional groups of the prepared glasses were studied in the range of 500 to 4000 cm⁻¹ using infrared spectroscopy. The absorption of PSEu glasses was studied in the range of 350–2400 nm range and contained peaks from the ⁷F₁ and ⁷F₀ ground levels. The excitation band at the ⁷F₀ → ⁵D₂ (463 nm) transition is of interest in the present work to estimate the phonon energy value (1222 cm⁻¹) of the host glass using the PSB (phonon side band) spectroscopy. JO theory was applied to determine the Ω_{2, 4, 6} intensity parameters by fitting the calculated and experimental oscillator strengths of the various absorption bands of Eu³⁺ ions. The asymmetric ratio between ⁵D₀ → ⁷F₁ and ⁵D₀ → ⁷F₂ emission transitions was calculated due to the dependences of Eu³⁺ ions on local symmetry at the ⁵D₀ → ⁷F₂ emission transition. The decay curves for the ⁵D₀ (614 nm) state of Eu³⁺ were measured upon 394 nm stimulation, which exhibits the single exponential nature in PSEu glasses. The color coordinates (x, y) of PSEu glasses were located near the reddish-orange zone. The radioluminescence characteristics of PSEu glasses and BGO crystal were studied under x-ray excitation in terms of scintillation efficiency.