REE-doped CaWO₄single crystals as reference materials forin situmicroanalysis of scheeliteviaLA-ICP-MS.

An analytical method for quantitative determination of REE concentration in NaY(WO ₄ ) ₂ laser crystals by LA-ICP-MS was proposed using a synthetic REE-doped NaY(WO ₄ ) ₂ single crystal NaYW-500 as an external calibrator.

Due to the tunable nonlinear optical properties of the Bi₂Te₃/graphene heterostructure, stable solid state pulsed lasers based on the Bi₂Te₃/graphene saturable absorber have attracted intensive attention. In this work, the Bi₂Te₃/graphene heterostructure with good nonlinear absorption characteristics was synthesized by a self-assembly solvothermal route, and the optical saturable absorption properties of the saturable absorber were investigated. Owing to the large modulation depth of Bi₂Te₃ nanosheets and the high thermal conductivity of graphene, the Bi₂Te₃/graphene heterostructure saturable absorber shown good nonlinear saturable absorber performance and contributed the improved passively Q-switched Yb³⁺: GdAl₃(BO₃)₄ pulsed laser when compared with that of the pure Bi₂Te₃ based Yb³⁺: GdAl₃(BO₃)₄ laser, no matter pulse width or pulse energy. Our work demonstrates that the Bi₂Te₃/graphene heterostructure was a promising saturable absorber in ~1 μm solid-state pulsed lasers.

Inorganic scintillation crystals have been widely used in applications of high-energy physics, nuclear medical imaging, industrial nondestructive inspection, etc. In this work, a single crystal Ba₃Y(PO₄)₃ (BYP) with 1.0 at% Ce³⁺-doping concentration was first grown by the Czochralski method, and the electronic structure was calculated using first principles based on density functional theory. In addition, a series of Ce³⁺-doped BYP phosphors were synthesized, and the fluorescence emission under UV excitation was measured through low-temperature spectroscopy, containing double-peaked emission from 5d–4f transition and self-trapped exciton recombination. A comparison of the UV and X-ray-excited fluorescence spectra reveals the existence of oxygen vacancies as well as F+ centers in the crystal. The air annealing of the crystal effectively reduces the thermoluminescence defects but reduces the emission intensity under UV or X-ray excitation. The BYP:Ce crystal shows a fast decay lifetime of 15.5 ns, and the fast component is as short as 8 ns. The results show that the Ce³⁺-doped BYP crystal has potential as a kind of scintillator with fast decay properties.