Luminescent properties and energy transfer in ZrO2:Sm3+ nanocrystals

The photoluminescence and crystalline structure characterization of undoped and several samarium doped ${\mathrm{ZrO}}_2$ samples are reported. Strong fluorescence emission produced by the transitions ${}^4{G}_{\text{5/2}}{\to }^6{H}_{\text{5/2,7/2,9/2}}$ of ${\mathrm{Sm}}^{\text{3+}}$ was obtained by the excitation of the host at 320 nm. The energy transfer process from the host to the samarium ion was confirmed by the analysis of the ${\mathrm{ZrO}}_2$ fluorescence decay curve. It is shown that the content of the active ions stabilizes the tetragonal structure of ${\mathrm{ZrO}}_2$ at 1000 °C, being 73% for $\text{2\hspace{0.05em}}\mathrm{mol}\mathrm{ \% }{\mathrm{Sm}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_3$ doped and 3% for undoped samples. The dependence between the fluorescence emission and the crystalline structure is discussed.