Rare earth ions (Eu³⁺ and Nd³⁺) doped BaSnF<inf>4</inf>: Transport and photoluminescence characteristics

Investigation on the X-ray diffraction results of rare earth ions such as Eu3+ and Nd3+ doped BaSnF4 materials indicates that the doped materials show a similar pattern of BaSnF4 with the same tetragonal structure (P4/nmm). The transport properties of the materials have been investigated by impedance spectroscopy, and the results show that the conductivity values are closely related to both concentration and type of the dopant ion. All of these doped materials show an increase in conductivity over un-doped BaSnF4. The highest conductivity is observed in 3 mol% Nd3+ ion-doped BaSnF4 system (9.01 × 10-4 Scm-1), which is about one order higher in comparison to BaSnF4 conductivity (1.1 × 10-4 Scm-1). The room temperature emission spectrum of BaSnF4:Eu3+ and BaSnF4:Nd3+ shows the characteristic bands arising from 5D0 → 7Fj (j = 1, 2, 3, and 4) and 4F3/2 to 4Ij (j = 9/2 and 11/2) transitions of Eu3+ and Nd3+ ions, respectively. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.