Mechanoluminescence glow curves of rare-earth doped strontium aluminate phosphors

The present paper reports the mechanoluminescence (ML) glow curves of rare-earth doped strontium aluminate phosphors. When Sr3Al2O6:Eu, Dy phosphor mixed in epoxy resin is compressed at a fixed pressing rate or fixed strain rate, its elastico ML (EML) intensity increases linearly with deformation time or pressure and attains a maximum value l(m) at the time t(m), at which the deformation is stopped. Under the pressed condition, the decay time for fast decrease of EML after tm, gives the time-constant for stopping the cross-head of the testing machine used to deform the sample, and decay time for slow decrease of EML gives the lifetime of electrons in the shallow traps lying in the normal piezoelectric region of the crystals. When SrAl2O4:Eu phosphor mixed in resin is compressed at a fixed rate, then the EML intensity increases linearly with pressure and when the pressure is decreased at a fixed rate, then the EML intensity decreases exponentially with time, in which the decay time of EML is equal to the lifetime of electrons in the shallow traps lying in the normal piezoelectric region of the crystals. The EML intensity of SrAl2O4:Eu film excited by the impact stress, initially increases with time, attains a peak value and later on it decreases exponentially with time, in which the fast decay of EML intensity gives the decay time of impact stress and the decay time of the slow decrease of the EML intensity gives the lifetime of electrons in the shallow traps lying in the normal piezoelectric region of the crystals. The piezoelectrically-induced detrapping model is found to be suitable for the EML of rare-earth doped strontium aluminate phosphors. Expressions derived on the basis of the piezoelectrically-induced detrapping model are able to explain satisfactorily the characteristics of the EML of the phosphors. It is shown that several parameters of the phosphors can be determined from the ML glow curves. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.