High thermal stability pyroxene type CaScAlSiO6:Tb3+/Sm3+ ceramics with excellent cryogenic optical thermometry performance

The lanthanide-doped fluorescence intensity ratio (FIR) temperature measurement technology for detecting inaccessible objects has attracted the attention of many scholars. In fact, FIR technology can achieve high-precision and non-contact temperature measurement, which is widely used in the biomedical and industrial fields, among others. In this study, novel pyroxene-type CaScAlSiO6:Tb3+/Sm3+ ceramics (CSAC) were synthesized using the traditional high-temperature solid-phase method, with the crystal structure, energy transfer mechanism, and optical behavior of the ceramics subsequently studied in detail. The use of 5D4→7F5 and 4G5/2 → 6H7/2 (I544nm/I602nm) energy level transitions as an optical thermometer has great potential, with the maximum absolute and relative sensitivity of the sensor found to be 0.1403 K−1 and 1.65%K−1, respectively. In addition, the material was cycled three times in the temperature range of 77–287 K and demonstrated a particularly high degree of credibility, with the luminous intensity having a particularly small effect on the temperature changes. Overall, the results indicate that the green-light-emitting CSAC:0.08Tb3+/0.01Sm3+ ceramic has great potential for use in optical cryothermometers.