Phase Transition Monitoring and Temperature Sensing Via FIR Technology in Bi/Sm‐codoped KNN Transparent Ceramics

The phase transition temperature (e.g., that of orthorhombic-tetragonal TO-T) of relaxor ferroelectrics are commonly obtained through electrical method (i.e., temperature dependence of dielectric constant), and the samples need to be coated with metal electrode and tested by a sophisticated impedance analyzer. This contact measuring method is inefficient, inconvenient and easy to damage the sample surface, inapplicable to transparent ferroelectrics. Here, we successfully fabricated Bi/Sm co-doped K0.5Na0.5NbO3 transparent ceramics with photoluminescent behavior and relaxor-like ferroelectricity, which simultaneously realized TO-T monitoring and temperature sensing via fluorescence intensity ratio (FIR) technology. This simple, rapid, noncontact and nondestructive optical way displays small TO-T deviation (merely 0.78%) compared to the electrical method. And the temperature-dependent optical characteristics and coercive electric field all present abrupt changes, whose abnormal temperature regions are in accordance with that around TO-T. In addition, the maximum absolute sensitivity and relative sensitivity of the ceramics reach 0.0072 K-1 (at 533 K) and 0.0111 K-1 (at 453 K), respectively, exhibiting superior optical temperature sensing performance. The tactical use of FIR technology is of great significance for widening the applications of luminescent-ferroelectric transparent ceramics.