Dual-emitting Tm3+/Mn2+ co-doped glass ceramic for wide-range optical thermometer

Tm3+/Mn2+ co-doped glass ceramic containing both GdF3 and Ga2O3 nano-crystals was successfully fabricated by a melt-quenching method. The partition of Tm3+ into GdF3 and the selective doping of Mn2+ in Ga2O3 were revealed by the optical spectroscopy analysis. The distributed-related energy transfer between Tm3+, Mn2+ and Gd3+ was investigated in details. The luminescence spectra of Tm3+/Mn2+ co-doped glass ceramic at different temperature were measured. Benefiting from the diverse temperature-dependent intensities of Tm3+: D-1(2) -> F-3(4) and Mn2+: T-4(1)(G) -> (6)A(1) (S) transitions, fluorescence intensity ratio between them exhibited highly temperature-sensitive behavior in a wide temperature range of 123-663 K. Consequently, the maximum absolute thermal sensitivity can reach 1.78 x 10(-2) K-1 at 543 K. Impressively, the emission peaks of Tm3+ (450 nm) and Mn2+ (513 nm) were well separated, enabling a good signal discriminability for thermal sensing. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.