Towards quantification of luminance values in photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopies by using a reference material

Nowadays, quantification in some spectroscopic techniques is a milestone to be achieved. This work aims to develop a new universal methodology to correlate the arbitrary intensity units from a photoluminescence spectrometer with luminance (µcd/mm 2 ), to quantify the photoluminescent intensity of materials. Reference sample composites with different concentrations (0.1–10 % by weight) of Eu 2 O 3 particles in an epoxy matrix were prepared and characterized by photoluminescence and their luminance was then measured with a luminancemeter. The results show that the proposed method successfully relates and quantifies the arbitrary units obtained from a photoluminescence spectrometer with the luminance at a given excitation wavelength. In addition, this study reveals that the method is applicable for quantifying luminescence measurements with a Raman spectrometer, provided that the photoluminescent materials have an excitation response near typical Raman excitation laser wavelengths. Furthermore, this new methodology was validated in the anti-counterfeiting application of value documents. • Homogeneous epoxy-based composites with different concentrations of Eu 2 O 3 particles were studied. • The optical responses of composites are not linear with Eu 2 O 3 concentrations. • Luminance values are quantified in both photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopies. • The proposed methodology has been validated in security paper as an anti-counterfeiting application. • The developed method allows quantifying the luminance even in isolated particles.