Comparison of ZrO2:Y nanocrystals and macroscopic single crystal luminescence

Abstract

The luminescence spectra of a tetragonally structured ZrO2:Y single crystal and nanocrystals were compared. It was found that the number of luminescence centers contributed to the spectra. The excitation of luminescence within the band gap region led to different luminescence spectra for the single crystal and nanocrystal samples, whereas recombinative luminescence spectra were the same for both samples. The origin of this difference is that in the nanocrystals, even under excitation within the band gap, charge carriers were created. Zirconium- oxygen complexes distorted by intrinsic defects were proposed to be the luminescence centres responsible for the wide luminescence band observed. © 2007 IOP Publishing Ltd.