The excitation of ZrO2-9.5%Y2O3 (100) and (110), using ns-pulses of 213nm (5.82eV), 266nm (4.66eV) and 355nm (3.49eV) photons, produced laser-stimulated luminescence bands with Gaussian profiles and peak maxima at 460nm (2.69eV), 550nm (2.25eV) and 600nm (2.07eV), respectively. The laser-stimulated luminescence involved a single-photon process for energy densities below about 1MW/cm2. The decay times ranged from 0.1 to 100μs, depending upon the excitation energy and temperature. The decay kinetics were hyperbolic; indicating that all of the laser-stimulated luminescence bands resulted from recombination. The various activation energies, decay kinetics and excitation/emission energies suggested the presence of several emission centers, which could be associated with anion vacancies. These were tentatively attributed to intrinsic F centers and extrinsic F-type centers. The latter were associated with one and two Y3+ ions in the nearest-neighbor positions. Since the normalized temperature dependences of the decay coefficients were similar for all of the laser-stimulated luminescence bands, it was suggested that recombination involved mainly electrons which were trapped at intrinsic and extrinsic defect sites, and mobilized holes.

Laser-Stimulated Luminescence of Yttria-Stabilized Cubic Zirconia Crystals. N.G.Petrik, D.P.Taylor, T.M.Orlando: Journal of Applied Physics, 1999, 85[9], 6770-5