Sol-gel Preparation and Spectral Characterization of Y2O3 Powders Doped with Yb3+ and Nd3+

Using a sol-gel process, we prepared samples of Y2O3 powder that were doped and codoped with Nd3+ and Yb3+. Samples were doped with different amounts of the rare earth ions in order to study the energy transfer between the dopant species. It was confirmed that energy transfer can be achieved allowing the Yb3+ ions to be excited using Nd3+ absorption peaks in the UV and visible wavelength regions. Optimum energy transfer occurred in samples doped with 0.5 at% Nd and 2 at% Yb. (C)2010 Optical Society of America