Luminescence and energy transfer of Ce3Â +/Tb3Â + ions in barium-gadolinium-aluminum borosilicate glasses

Ce3 +-doped, Tb3 +-doped and (Ce3 +, Tb3 +)-codoped BaO-Gd2O3-Al2O3-B2O3-SiO2 glasses were prepared by high temperature melting method and their luminescence properties have been investigated under UV excitation. Ce3 +-doped borosilicate glass has a strong purplish-blue emission with the maximum about at 399 nm. Tb3 +-doped borosilicate glass shows bright green emission at about 545 nm. (Ce3 +, Tb3 +)-codoped borosilicate glasses present a broad band emission ranging from 350 to 475 nm except emitting light at about 490, 545, 588 and 624 nm. There is an effective energy transfer from Ce3 + ion to Tb3 + ion and Ce3 + ion strongly sensitizes the luminescence of Tb3 + ion in (Ce3 +, Tb3 +)-codoped borosilicate glasses. A fast luminescence decay time of Tb3 + ion is in an order of ms in (Ce3 +, Tb3 +)-codoped borosilicate glasses, which indicates it could be useful for X-ray detection for slow event.