Temperature and concentration dependence of the lifetime of a praseodymium excited state in fluorozirconate glass

Summary form only given. A variety of optical fibre temperature sensors have been demonstrated which rely on the temperature dependence of rare earth doped glass spectra and excited state lifetimes. Excited state lifetimes are also affected by the dopant concentration and as a result, the optimisation of a sensor requires tradeoffs between signal strength, dopant concentration and length of fibre sensor element. We present a study of the temperature and concentration dependence of the /sup 3/P/sub 0/ state of Pr/sup 3+/ doped ZBLANP which is designed to elucidate these tradeoffs.