Abstract
Rare-earth oxide materials emit thermal radiation in a narrow spectral region, and can be used for a variety of different high-temperature applications, such as the generation of electricity by thermophotovoltaic conversion of thermal radiation. However, because a detailed understanding of the mechanism of selective emission from rare-earth atoms has so far been missing, attempts to engineer selective emitters have relied mainly on empirical approaches. In this work, we present a new quantum thermodynamic model to describe the mechanisms of thermal pumping and radiative de-excitation in rare-earth oxide materials. By evaluating the effects of the local crystal-field symmetry around a rare-earth ion, this model clearly explains how and why only some of the room-temperature absorption peaks give rise to highly efficient emission bands at high temperature (1,000–1,500 °C). High-temperature emissivity measurements along with photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence results confirm the predictions of the theory.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Lorenzo Vasanelli for useful discussions. This work has been supported by the EC grant no. ERK6-CT-1999-00019 (project THE REV).
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Torsello, G., Lomascolo, M., Licciulli, A. et al. The origin of highly efficient selective emission in rare-earth oxides for thermophotovoltaic applications. Nature Mater 3, 632–637 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1197
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1197
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