Optical absorption and fluorescence investigation of the precipitated phases of Eu2+ in KBr single crystals

Europium precipitation in monocrystalline KBR has been studied using optical absorption and photoluminescence techniques. The annealing of quenched samples at temperatures below 100°C produces the growth of an emission band peaking at 433 nm which appears to be related with the presence of Suzuki-type precipitates in the crystals. The aging at higher temperatures, however, produces the appearence in the emission spectrum of two other bands peaking at 427 and 459 nm. The data presented in this paper strongly suggest that the former band is associated with the stable dihalide phase EuBr₂ in the host KBr, while the latter is due to a metastable precipitate whose structure appears to be quite similar to that of europium bromide. Some of the characteristics of the second phase precipitates were obtained by measuring the crystal field splitting (10 Dq) of the 4f⁶5d configuration of the Eu²⁺ ions in each one of them.