The role of air annealing on the optical and scintillation properties of Mg co-doped Pr:LuAG transparent ceramics

Polycrystalline 0.2at%Pr:Lu3Al5O12 (Pr:LuAG) transparent ceramics were fabricated by solid-state reaction using 0.01 wt% MgO as sintering aid. The as-sintered ceramics were annealed in air at different temperatures. Optical absorption, photoluminescence, X-ray excited luminescence and pulse height spectra obtained after different annealing were compared. Modifications of the oxygen vacancy concentrations are found to govern the changes of the optical and scintillation response for annealing temperatures lower than 1000 °C, while the oxidation of Pr3+ to Pr4+ plays a more important role for higher temperatures. Air annealing up to 700 °C is an effective tool to improve the 5d-4f emission efficiency of MgO co-doped Pr:LuAG transparent ceramics. The highest radioluminescence intensity is obtained for the 700 °C annealed sample. At variance, higher temperature annealing leads to the deterioration of 5d-4f photoluminescence and scintillation properties because of the self-absorption of Pr4+ and energy transfer from Pr3+ to Pr4+. In addition, we find that the 4f-4f slow emission of ceramics shows different response characteristics under different irradiation sources.