Luminescence of Pr3+-doped garnet single crystals

Abstract The steady-state and time-resolved emission and excitation spectra as well as defects creation spectra were studied for Pr3+-doped Y3Al5O12 (YAG) and Lu3Al5O12 (LuAG) single crystals at 11–300 K in the 2–12 eV energy range. For Pr3+-related UV emission bands located at 3.0–4.2 eV and excited in the band-to-band and exciton absorption regions, additional excitation bands are observed around 6.9–6.35 eV (LuAG) and 6.7–6.25 eV (YAG), which are absent in the undoped crystals and in the excitation spectrum of the intrinsic emission. The wide intrinsic emission observed at 11 K around 4.9 eV, arising from the antisite defects ( Lu Al 3 + ) , is excited only in the exciton band and in the band-to-band absorption region.