The temperature-dependent characteristics of fluorescence of several rare-earth-doped ceramic phosphors has made these materials the focus of a major effort in the field of noncontact thermometry over the past few decades. These “thermographic phosphors,” e.g., Y2O3:Eu, have been used for remote measurements of the temperatures of both static and moving surfaces, and have performed many other tasks that standard sensors (thermocouples, thermistors, etc.) cannot. The range of usefulness of this class of materials extends from cryogenic temperatures to those approaching 2000 °C. The instrumentation needed for this type of thermometry has followed many different lines of development, and this evolution has produced a wide variety of both field- and laboratory-grade systems that are now described in the literature. In general, the technique offers high sensitivity (≈0.05 °C), robustness (e.g., stability of the sensor sample in harsh environments), and NIST traceability. In addition, such systems have been successfully adapted to make remotely sensed measurements of pressure, heat flux, shear stress, and strain. In this review, we summarize the physical mechanisms that form the basis for the technique, and then catalog and discuss the instrumentation-related aspects of several different remote thermometry systems that employ thermographic phosphors as the sensors.

The laser-induced fluorescence lifetime of 30 nm particles of YAG:Ce was measured as a function of temperature from 7 to 77°C. The fluorescence decay lifetimes for the nanoparticles of this phosphor varied from ≈18 to 27 ns, i.e. ≈33% relative to the longest lifetime measured. This large variation in lifetime, coupled with the high signal strength that was observed, suggest that YAG:Ce nanoparticles will be useful thermographic phosphors. We describe the material and the apparatus used to characterize its fluorescence, present the results of measurements made over the range of temperatures tested and comment on some possible applications for this novel material.

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