Effect of excitation wavelength(blue vs near UV)and dopant concentrations on afterglow and fast decay of persistent phosphor SrAl_(2)O_(4):Eu^(2+),Dy^(3+)

The persistent phosphor SrAl_(2)O_(4):Eu^(2+),Dy^(3+)is the subject of numerous investigations.One often neglected aspect is that in this phosphor,as well as in Sr_(4)Al_(14)O_(25):Eu^(2+),Dy^(3+),there are two different Sr^(2)+sites which can be occupied by the dopant Eu^(2+)ions,We first introduce a general scheme of possible energy transfers in these persistent phosphor materials including explicitly both europium ions,This scheme is used as a generic starting point to study experimentally specific pathways.We illustrate this application with the study of the effect of excitation wavelength(444 and 382 nm)on the afterglow of differently doped SrAl_(2)O_(4):Eu^(2+),Dy^(3+)samples,as well as on the emission decay curves.With the same excitation intensity under 444 nm excitation,the resulting afterglow intensity is stronger than under near UV excitation.At 382 nm,Eu^(2+)ions on both Sr^(2)+s ites in SrAl_(2)O_(4)are excited,but at room temperature the blue emission is quenched,leading to a loss of photons.The observed effects can further be associated with the ratio of Eu^(2+)ions and trap states which are modulated by the concentrations of Eu^(2+)and Dy^(3+)in SrAl_(2)O_(4),as well as by temperature,Increasing the nominal Dy^(3+)content from 0.1 mol%to 0.5 mol%with respect to Sr results in the doubling of the integrated afterglow intensity and confirms thus that Dy^(3+)ions are indeed involved in the trapping process,The concentration of trap states is much lower than the concentration of Eu^(2+)ions,as even with low excitation densities,a plateau of integrated afterglow intensity(corresponding to the total number of accessible traps)is reached.We postulate that an important fraction of excited Eu^(2+)ions can potentially transfer their energy to trap states.Once that all traps are filled or in a dynamical filling-depletion process under illumination(with thermal and/or optical depletion processes),for the remaining Eu^(2+)a"normal"steady-state emission is observed.The luminescence decay curves at 520 nm measured at 77 K show a mono-exponential decay with a common lifetime of about 1140 ns for all 5 samples under 437 nm excitation,while under 375 nm excitation,a feed process originating from the energy transfer between Eu^(2+)ions is demonstrated.Under 375 nm excitation,the non-exponential decay observed at 440 nm can be quantitatively associated to a Forster energy transfer process with R_(0)=1.58(8)nm.For the overall understanding of the afterglow processes,it appears that one has to consider the individual contributions of all active ions on different lattice sites.