Site-selected luminescence of atomic europium in the solid rare gases

Site-selective excitation has been used to simplify complex emission recorded in the visible spectral region for atomic europium isolated in the solid rare gases. In addition to y8P resonance fluorescence, excitation of the y8P state produces emission from the z6P state and the metastable a10D state. Very weak emission at 690 nm is tentatively assigned to the J = 9/2 level of the z10P state. Eu atoms isolated in the red and blue sites exhibit very different temperature dependence both spectrally and temporally. For the y8P state emission the red site atoms exhibit small Stokes shifts and yield radiative lifetimes while the emission from the blue site loses intensity and the temporal profiles shorten dramatically between 10 and 16 K indicating very efficient non-radiative relaxation in this site. An analysis of the Stokes shifts exhibited for the y8P state in each site supports the attributions made in a previous publication [O. Byrne and J.G. McCaffrey, J. Chem. Phys. 134, 124501 (2011)]10.1063/1.3564947 that the smaller blue tetravacancy site has a greater repulsive interaction with the guest. With the exception of the y8P state resonance fluorescence, the recorded decay profiles of all the other emissions exhibit multiple components. This behaviour has been attributed to the existence of multiple crystal field levels arising from the splitting of the distinct spin-orbit levels from which emission occurs