Ga-modified YAG:Pr3+ dual-mode tunable luminescence thermometers

The temperature determination using luminescent materials is nowadays considered the perspective remote technique for temperature gauging, despite the few examples reported so far combining wide operating temperature range with satisfying relative thermal sensitivity and temperature uncertainty values. In this paper, we study the Y3(Al,Ga)5O12:0.1%Pr phosphors with controlled Ga:Al composition to deliberately affect their luminescent properties. We demonstrate that the energy barrier for thermal quenching of the 5d-4f luminescence can be effectively tailored, yielding the fine tune of the thermometric parameters of these phosphors. By exploiting time-resolved and time-integrated approaches we show that the thermometers can cover the 17–700 K temperature range with a maximum relative sensitivity up to 3.6%·K−1 and a temperature uncertainty as lower as 0.02 K. For each sample, the temperature readout of the distinct thermometric parameters is compared illustrating that the performance of the thermometers should also consider the relative temperature error between the calculated and the measured temperatures, besides relative thermal sensitivity and temperature uncertainty.