Optical thermometry with lanthanide and transition metal activated oxide materials (part 1)

Miroslav D. Dramićanin

University of Belgrade, Serbia

The lectures address the basic aspects of optical thermometry and the necessary background. In the first lecture, “Why we measure temperature?” question will be answered by not only telling the audience that temperature is a basic physical quantity but rather how temperature effects our daily life, from the mundane as to what we wear to the importance of temperature in the global climate. This will be accompanied by the brief description of the history of thermometry. Then, the continual need for the development of novel temperature measurement concepts and instruments will be discussed with emphasis on the role of luminescence thermometry and luminescent materials. The outlines different techniques for the read-out of temperature using luminescence based on the following parameters: intensity, bandwidth, bandshape, spectral shift, polarization, and lifetimes will be given. An in-depth discussion of their advantages and disadvantages is provided. The presentation will continue with the prominent examples of lanthanide and transition metal activated oxides used for luminescence thermometry in a variety of applications. These will cover the aerospace, electro machinery, optoelectronics, nanotechnology, biomedicine technologies.