Upconversion Luminescence in Barium Titanate Xerogel Doped with Erbium and Ytterbium in Porous Anodic Aluminum Oxide

In this work, sol-gel synthesis and luminescence properties of erbium and ytterbium doped BaTiO₃ (BaTiO3:Er,Yb) in porous anodic alumina are reported. Porous anodic alumina with its well-known tailor-made honeycomb structure was chosen as a template for the sol-gel synthesis of BaTiO₃:Er,Yb. Porous anodic alumina was fabricated either on silicon wafer or aluminum foil. The sol corresponding to xerogel content of Ba_0,76Er_0,04Yb_0,20TiO₃ was deposited on porous anodic alumina by spinning, which was followed by drying and heat treatment at a relatively low temperature 450 °C on aluminum foil or 800 °C on silicon. Porous anodic alumina known also as an optically anisotropic structure differed in the experiments by diameter of the pores and thickness. Evidently, all fabricated samples demonstrated a roomtemperature erbium upconversion luminescence under excitation in the continuous-wave (CW) mode with a focused 980 nm laser beam of a 200 mW diode module. Erbium upconversion luminescence is characterized by the bands at 410, 523, 546, and 658 nm, corresponding to the ²H_9/2 → ⁴I_15/2, ²H_11/2 → ⁴I_15/2, ⁴S_3/2 → ⁴I_15/2 and ⁴F_9/2 → ⁴I_15/2.

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