Alkaline earth metal ion doping to enhance the light emission from Er3+:SnO2 nanocrystal Co-doped silica films

Enze Qu; Yangyi Zhang; Lixiang Wang; Jiaming Chen; Dongke Li; Jingjie Zhao; Jun Xu; Kunji Chen

doi:10.1039/d3cp00337j

Alkaline earth metal ion doping to enhance the light emission from Er³⁺:SnO₂ nanocrystal Co-doped silica films

Phys Chem Chem Phys. 2023 Jul 12;25(27):18175-18181. doi: 10.1039/d3cp00337j.

Authors

Enze Qu¹, Yangyi Zhang^{1

2}, Lixiang Wang¹, Jiaming Chen¹, Dongke Li^{1

3}, Jingjie Zhao¹, Jun Xu¹, Kunji Chen¹

Affiliations

¹ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Advanced Photonic and Electronic Materials, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China. junxu@nju.edu.cn.
² School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Chuzhou University, Anhui, 239000, China.
³ ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, 311200, Hangzhou, China.

PMID: 37387207
DOI: 10.1039/d3cp00337j

Abstract

Alkaline earth metal ions (Mg²⁺, Ca²⁺, Sr²⁺) have been introduced into Er³⁺:SnO₂ nanocrystal co-doped silica thin films fabricated by a sol-gel method combined with a spin-coating technique. It is found that the incorporation of alkaline earth metal ions can enhance the light emission from Er³⁺ at the wavelength around 1540 nm and the strongest enhancement is observed in samples doped with 5 mol% Sr²⁺ ions. Based on X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and other spectroscopic measurements, the improved light emission can be attributed to more oxygen vacancies, better crystallinity and a stronger cross-relaxation process with the introduction of alkaline earth metal ions.