Laser site-selection spectroscopy investigation ofEu3+ions in YVO4crystals

Abstract

Narrow-band laser excitation is used to pump trivalent europium ions in yttrium orthovanadate crystals and the fluorescence emission indicates the presence of several different types of crystal-field sites. Ions in specific crystal-field sites can be selectively excited and time-resolved spectroscopy techniques are used to characterize energy transfer to ions in different types of sites. The energy transfer is found to be consistent with a resonant electric dipole-dipole interaction process and it appears that the ${\mathrm{Eu}}^{3+}$ ions have a tendency to form clusters.