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Keywords:

glass ceramics, nanocrystals, optical properties, magneto-optical effects, photoluminescence, confinement effect, absorption-edge, crystals, pbf2, Science & Technology, Physical Sciences, Optics, Glass ceramics, Nanocrystals, Optical properties, Magneto-optical effects, Photoluminescence, Confinement effect, ABSORPTION-EDGE, PBF2, 0205 Optical Physics, 0306 Physical Chemistry (incl. Structural), Applied Physics, 3402 Inorganic chemistry

Abstract:

We report a non-linear blue shift of the zero-phonon emission line D-5(0)-> F-7(0) of Eu3+-dopant in Eu3+-doped nano-glass-ceramics in magnetic field up to 50 T. The shift is significantly larger in nano-glass-ceramics compared to its precursor glass, suggesting that the nanoceraming of the precursor glass decreases the effective mass of the f-electrons bands of Eu3+ resulting in their enhanced magnetic confinement. Moreover, the non-linear character of the magnetic field dependence of this blue energy shift denotes a spatial confinement of f-electrons wave-functions of Eu3+ dopants in the PbF2-based nanocrystals of the nano-glass-ceramics where up to 90% of the dopants partition The spatial confinement seems to be due to an admixture to the f-states of Eu3+ of its higher lying states of opposite parity which fall in the quantum well comprising of Eu3+-doped PbF2 crystalline nanoparticles embedded in the surrounding glass network. (c) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.