Parametric study of intensity-ratio-based phosphor thermometry using Mg₄FGeO₆:Mn⁴⁺ for instantaneous temperature measurement

Abstract

Intensity-ratio-based phosphor thermometry is advantageous for instantaneous temperature measurement because it avoids interframe displacement due to moving phosphor coated samples that is encountered with lifetime-based methods. This study was aimed at investigating the effects of exposure time, excitation energy, and wavelength on intensity-ratio-based phosphor thermometry using Mg4FGeO6:Mn4+ (MFG). First, the temperature-dependent emission spectra of MFG were obtained under 355 nm and 405 nm excitations. The spectra exhibited different trends in the two cases, potentially because of thermally enhanced phonon-assisted absorption. Next, the shot-to-shot calibration uncertainties were evaluated from the temperature calibration results under different exposure time and excitation irradiance/fluence values for light-emitting diode/laser. The uncertainties under 355 nm and 405 nm excitations exhibited similar trends, i.e. they increased and decreased with increasing temperature and exposure time, respectively. For the minimum exposure time of 4 μs under 355 nm excitation, the uncertainty increased from 1.5 K at 323 K to 3.3 K at 673 K at a constant excitation fluence of 3.14 mJ cm−2. The uncertainties under 405 nm excitation were higher than those under 355 nm excitation. In addition, the inaccuracies due to excitation non-uniformity were evaluated from the calibration results under different excitation irradiance/fluence. The calibration curves were more sensitive to excitation irradiance at higher temperatures under 405 nm excitation. Consequently, the excitation non-uniformity induced inaccuracies under 405 nm excitation and different exposure time values were small at low temperatures (0.4–1.1 K at 323 K) and increased rapidly with temperature (2.6–14.4 K at 673 K). In the case of 355 nm excitation, the calibration curves exhibited small sensitivity to excitation fluence only at low temperatures. As the temperature increased, the inaccuracies under 355 nm excitation decreased and then increased, and exhibited values between 0.5 K and 2.5 K.