Niobium-gallium oxide with a high concentration of Cr 3+ ions: Photoluminescence and structural characteristics

Abstract This work presents photoluminescence data for gallium-niobium oxide with chromium ion as an impurity. The samples were obtained by the solid-state method (SSM) and the wet-chemical method (WCM) and investigated by X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence, excitation, and photoacoustic and X-ray fluorescence. The color of the sample obtained by the SSM was pink, while the color of the sample prepared by the WCM was green. This dramatic difference was associated with Cr3+ concentration and with the neighborhood of the doping ions, obtained from crystallographic data, which is strongly dependent on the preparation method. The difference between the samples was also verified in the photoacoustic and excitation spectra, in which the energy bands were located at different energy levels; on the other hand, in the photoluminescence spectra, no band shift was observed. All spectra were assigned to chromium ions at nonequivalent octahedral sites.