Tuning the emission colour by manipulating terbium-terbium interactions: Terbium doped aluminum nitride as an example system

Benz F, Strunk HP, Schaab J, Künecke U, Wellmann P (2013)


Publication Language: English

Publication Status: Published

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2013

Journal

Publisher: American Institute of Physics (AIP)

Book Volume: 114

Article Number: 073518

Journal Issue: 7

DOI: 10.1063/1.4818815

Abstract

Terbium-terbium interactions in terbium doped semiconductors and insulators may lead to the so-called cross-relaxation process, which increases the D-5(4) (green) emission of the terbium ions at the cost of the D-5(3) (blue) luminescence intensity. This effect can generally be reduced by increasing the distance between an excited ion and the nearest ion in the ground state. A straightforward measure is to use a specimen with a decreased terbium concentration. The alternative is to increase the intensity of the excitation (either by photons or electrons) and thereby to reduce the population of terbium ions in the ground state. This paper works this process out with the example of AlN:Tb on the basis of a model and respective experimental results. As will be seen, stronger excitation causes in essence more Tb ions to be excited, thus less ions in the ground state which increases the distance between an excited and the nearest ground state ions. This hinders energy transfer between the terbium ions and thus counteracts the cross-relaxation process. The advantage of changing the excitation intensity lies in the possibility to deliberately shift the apparent colour of the Tb luminescence from a single specimen between green and blue. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.

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APA:

Benz, F., Strunk, H.P., Schaab, J., Künecke, U., & Wellmann, P. (2013). Tuning the emission colour by manipulating terbium-terbium interactions: Terbium doped aluminum nitride as an example system. Journal of Applied Physics, 114(7). https://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4818815

MLA:

Benz, Felix, et al. "Tuning the emission colour by manipulating terbium-terbium interactions: Terbium doped aluminum nitride as an example system." Journal of Applied Physics 114.7 (2013).

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