Luminescence and energy transfer in Dy3+/Tb3+ co-doped CaO-Al2O3-B2O3-RE2O3 glass

The new calcium aluminoborate glasses with the composition of CaO-Al2O3-B2O3-RE2O3 (RE = Dy and Tb) were synthesized and the luminescence of Dy3+ and Tb3+ was investigated. The results show that the emission intensity of Tb3+ ion was enhanced when introducing Dy3+ ion into CaO-Al2O3-B2O3-Tb2O3 glass due to the energy transfer processes between Dy3+ and Tb3+. The energy transfer efficiencies, transfer probabilities as well as donor-acceptor critical distances were also calculated. The energy transfer mechanism between Dy3+ and Tb3+ ions is electric dipole-dipole interaction, which can be concluded by both fluorescence decay and emission intensity ratio varieties. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.