N-lines and chromium-pairs in the luminescence spectra of the spinels ZnAl2O4:Cr3+ and MgAl2O4:Cr3+

It is shown that the N-lines in the luminescence spectra of the two spinels ZnAl₂O₄:Cr³⁺ and MgAl₂O₄:Cr³⁺ exhibit quite similar dependencies on chromium concentration, excitation frequency, and thermal treatment of the samples. While most of these lines are structure dependent, the line N₄ at $\text{ν}{}_{\mathrm{R}}\text{?}\text{ν}\text{≈ 400}\text{cm}{}^{\mathrm{?1}}$ and two very weak lines are in both cases due to chromium-pairs. The exchange Hamiltonian H_ex = JS₁ · S₂ + j(S₁ · S₂)² used for the ground-state splitting is fitted by the parameters J = 40.9 cm^?1, j = 1.5 cm^?1 and J = 45.6 cm^?1, j = 2.0 cm^?1 for ZnAl-spinel and MgAl-spinel, respectively. The differences between the spectra of low-doped and high-doped samples are in both cases caused by the existence of a phonon sideband of the N₄-line, which is in many respects similar to the well-known phonon side band of the R-line.