Erbium luminescence in (Y, Er, Yb)3Al5O12 powders

In this work, the Stokes and anti-Stokes luminescence (upconversion) of erbium in powders of yttrium-aluminum garnet with various concentrations of erbium, as well as co-doped with erbium and ytterbium, synthesized by the sol-gel method using multistage thermal processing, was investigated. It was established that the phase composition of the resulting powders corresponds to the crystal structure of garnet. For all powders, high-intensity Stokes luminescence with a maximum at 1.53 μm was observed due to the I13/24→I15/24 electronic transition, and anti-Stokes luminescence was observed with the most intense band in the region of 0.65–0.69 μm, associated with the F9/24→I15/24 transition of Er3+ ions. The highest intensity of the Stokes luminescence is observed for the maximum substitution of yttrium by erbium considered here, which corresponds to the Yb1.5Er1.5Al5O12 stoichiometry. The highest intensity of the anti-Stokes luminescence is for the lowest erbium concentration and for codoping with ytterbium with Y2.71Er0.29Al5O12 and Y2Er0.5Yb0.5Al5O12 stoichiometries, respectively.