Investigating the luminescence properties as a function of activator concentration in single crystal cerium doped Lu2SiO5: Determination of the configuration coordinate model

The effect of cerium concentration on single crystal lutetium orthosilicate (Lu2SiO5, LSO) was investigated with temperature-dependent steady state and time resolved luminescence spectroscopy. The results were used to determine the thermal quenching activation energies and the phonon energies responsible for the thermal broadening of the luminescence spectra. The measured phonon values were used to calculate configuration coordinate (CC) diagrams of the luminescence centers. The nature of single crystal LSO:Ce concentration quenching was determined to be due to radiative energy transfer by self-absorption. The observed broadening of the excitation spectra and narrowing of the emission spectra with increasing cerium was explained via a CC model. A combination of the CC model and concentration quenching explained the measured thermal quenching activation energies. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3601348]