Optical properties and energy transfer in Tb3+/Sm3+ co-doped Na2O-CaO-P2O5-B2O3-ZrO2 glasses

Tb3+/Sm3+ co-doped transparent Na2O-CaO-P2O5-B2O3-ZrO2 system glasses have been successfully synthesized via melt quenching technique. The structural, optical and luminescence characteristics of the synthesized glasses were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, photoluminescence excitation (PLE), photoluminescence (PL) spectra, absorption spectra and fluorescence decay, respectively. The energy transfer of Tb3+→Sm3+ in glasses samples were demonstrated. The energy transfer efficiency (η) and energy transfer probability (P) for Tb3+/Sm3+ co-doped glass samples monotonously increased with an increase of Sm3+ concentration. Moreover, it was confirmed that electric quadrupole-quadrupole (Eqq) interaction is the dominant mechanism in the glass samples. The luminescent color, color coordinate and color correlated temperatures (CCTs) could be tuned from yellow green to yellow by adjusting the ratio of Tb3+/Sm3+ ions concentrations. This finding showed the potential application of the as-obtained luminescent glasses in UV converted white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) and other optical devices.