Optical Thermometry Based on Near-Infrared Luminescence from Phosphors Mixture

Luminescence ratiometric thermometry based on rare earth(RE) ions has attracted great interest for the potential applications in many fields.But the improvement of the measurement sensitivity and accuracy is significantly restricted due to the small energy gap between thermally coupled levels(TCL).Here,a strategy striving for good thermometric properties of luminescent materials was designed by using the phosphors mixture composed of NaY(WO 4 ) 2 :Nd 3+ -Yb 3+ and NaY(WO 4 ) 2 :Er 3+ ,which were prepared by secondary sintering method.Under the excitation of 980 nm lase r,the near-infrared(NIR) emissions(710-920 nm) from Nd 3+ ions are effectively strengthened when the temperature increases from 304 to773 K,whereas Er 3+ NIR luminescence centered at around 1536 nm is thermally quenched.The remarkably different response of NIR emissions to the thermal variation allows us to map temperature through the ratiometric method.By optimizing the dopant concentration of rare earth(RE) ions,a maximum sensitivity of 5.14%/K together with a measurement uncertainty of about 0.1 K is acquired at304 K,which is superior to the previously reported RE luminescence-based temperature sensors,indicating that the approach developed here can pave the way for achieving optical thermometry with desired properties.