Luminescence of Ce3+ and Pr3+ doped Sr2Mg(BO3)2 under VUV–UV and X-ray excitation

This report presents the luminescence properties of Ce3+ and Pr3+ activated Sr2Mg(BO3)2 under VUV–UV and X-ray excitation. The five excitation bands of crystal field split 5d states are observed at about 46 729, 44 643, 41 667, 38 314 and 29 762 cm−1 (i.e. 214, 224, 240, 261 and 336 nm) for Ce3+ in the host lattice. The doublet Ce3+ 5d→4f emission bands were found at about 25 840 and 24 096 cm−1 (387 and 415 nm). The influence of doping concentration and temperature on the emission characteristics and the decay time of Ce3+ in Sr2Mg(BO3)2 were investigated. For Pr3+ doped samples, the lowest 5d excitation band was observed at about 42017 cm−1 (238 nm), a dominant band at around 35714 cm−1 (280 nm) and two shoulder bands were seen in the emission spectra. The excitation and emission spectra of Ce3+ and Pr3+ were compared and discussed. The X-ray excited luminescence studies show that the light yields are ∼3200±230 and ∼1400±100 photons/MeV of absorbed X-ray energy for the samples Sr1.86Ce0.07Na0.07Mg(BO3)2 and Sr1.82Pr0.09Na0.09Mg(BO3)2 at RT, respectively.