Time-resolved vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy of Er3+Er3^+ ions in the SrF2SrF_2 crystals

The photoluminescence and photoexcitation spectra as well as the luminescence decay kinetics of Er3+ ions in the visible ultraviolet and vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) regions have been studied by the method of low-temperature, time-resolved VUV-spectroscopy on excitation by synchrotron radiation. In the VUV spectral region of the luminescence of SrF2:1% Er3+, the 146.5-nm band with a time of decay of less than 0.6 nsec was revealed together with the well-known emission band at 164.3 nm (decay constant in the microsecond range). Its possible nature is discussed. The specific features of the formation of photoexcitation spectra of the f-f and f-d transitions in the Er3+ ion are considered. Competition between the processes of excitation of f-f and d-f luminescence has been revealed. It manifests itself in the inverse relationship of their photoexcitation spectra in a range of energies of incident photons that are close to the position of the 4fn-15d configuration levels. © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.This work was carried out with the support of grants from the Russian Fundamental Research Foundation (05-02-16530), "Universities of Russia (UR 02.01.433), Ural Scientific Center Promising Materials" CRDF (EK-005-XI), and partially from BMBF (05KS8GMD/1)