Highly Sensitive Dual-Phase Nanoglass-Ceramics Self-Calibrated Optical Thermometer

A strategy to achieve high sensitivity of noncontact optical thermometer via the structure design of nanoglass-ceramic and the usage of Ln(3+) (Ln = Eu, Tb, Dy) luminescence as reference signal and Cr(3+) emission as temperature signal was provided. Specifically, the synthesized dual-phase glass-ceramics were evidenced to enable spatially confined doping of Ln(3+) in the hexagonal GdF3 nanocrystals and Cr(3+) in the cubic Ga2O3 nanoparticles, being beneficial to suppressing detrimental energy transfer between Ln(3+) and Cr(3+) and thus significantly enhancing their luminescence. As a consequence, completely different temperature-sensitive luminescence of Ln(3+)4f → 4f transition and Cr(3+) 3d → 3d transition in the present glass-ceramic resulted in obvious variation of Cr(3+)/Ln(3+) fluorescence intensity ratio with temperature and strikingly high detecting temperature sensitivity of 15-22% per K. We believe that this preliminary study will provide an important advance in exploring other innovative optical thermometry.