Temperature induced modulation of near-infrared photoluminescence in BaTiO3:Er

Due to the shielding effect of the outermost electronic layer 5s and 5p of rare earth, the near-infrared photoluminescence (PL) of Er3+ can not be easily affected by the external environment. However, we have regulated the near-infrared PL of Er3+ by changing temperature, which is ascribed to the phase transition of BaTiO3 from tetragonal to cubic phase and the presence of impurity. It also found that the redshift of wavelength in samples containing tetragonal phase BaTiO3 can reach 13 nm, which is never observed in other materials. The center wavelength shifts from 1530 nm to 1543 nm as the temperature rises from 20 to 200 °C. Moreover, the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of samples containing cubic phase has a growth of 6 nm (up to 85 nm) with increasing temperature. It indicated that temperature-induced phase transition can be an important method to modulate the PL of Er3+ in BaTiO3 with impurity.