Reabsorption artifacts in measured excited-state lifetimes of solids

Abstract

The effect of repeated radiative energy transfer on the observed excited-state lifetime ${\tau }_{\mathrm{obs}}$ of a luminescent species in a solid is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. Increasing the sample path length, the reabsorption coefficient, or the luminescence quantum yield significantly lengthens ${\tau }_{\mathrm{obs}}$ relative to its intrinsic value ${\tau }_0.$ This effect is additionally amplified by total internal reflection. Room-temperature lifetimes of ${ }^2{F}_{5/2}$ in $\mathrm{YAG}:1\%{\mathrm{Yb}}^{3+}$ and ${ }^4{I}_{11/2}$ in $\mathrm{YLF}:5\%{\mathrm{Er}}^{3+}$ were measured in a spherically refractive-index-matched geometry, yielding the low values of $0.9489\pm 0.0006$ and $3.75\pm 0.01 \mathrm{ms},$ respectively. It is concluded that lifetimes obtained from non-refractive-index matched experiments are usually significantly overestimated. The technique presented is easily applicable to room-temperature excited-state lifetime measurements of many luminescent solids.

© 1997 Optical Society of America

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