Electronic absorption spectra of rare earth (III) species in NaCl–2CsCl eutectic based melts

• DOI: 10.1063/1.4962607
• Publication Date: 2016-09-10T00:30:32Z
• Authors: V. A. Volkovich; A. B. Ivanov; S. M. Yakimov; D. V. Tsarevskii; O. A. Golovanova; V. V. Sukhikh; T. R. Griffiths
• Keywords: 02 engineering and technology; 0210 nano-technology; 7. Clean energy

Electronic absorption spectra of ions of trivalent rare earth elements were measured in the melts based on NaCl–2CsCl eutectic in the wavelength ranges of 190–1350 and 1450–1700 nm. The measurements were performed at 550–850 °C. The EAS of Y, La, Ce and Lu containing melts have no absorption bands in the studied regions. For the remaining REEs (Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb) the absorption bands in the EAS were assigned to the corresponding f–f electron transitions. The Stark effect was observed for Yb(III) F5/2 excited state. Increasing temperature leads to decreasing intensity of the absorption bands, except for the bands resulting from hypersensitive transitions. Beer’s law was confirmed up to 0.4 M solutions of REE.