On the experimental determination of 4f-4f intensity parameters from the emission spectra of europium (III) compounds

Eu3+ complexes and specially β-diketonate compounds are well known and studied in several areas due to their luminescence properties, such as sensors and lightning devices. A unique feature of the Eu3+ ion is the experimental determination of the 4f-4f intensity parameters Ωλ directly from the emission spectrum. The equations for determining Ωλ from the emission spectra are different for the detection of emitted power compared to modern equipment that detects photons per second. It is shown that the differences between Ωλ determined by misusing the equations are sizable for Ω4 (ca. 15.5%) for several Eu3+β-diketonate complexes and leads to differences of ca. 5% in the intrinsic quantum yields Q_Ln^Ln. Due to the unique features of trivalent lanthanide ions, such as the shielding of 4f-electrons, which lead to small covalency and crystal field effects, a linear correlation was observed between Ωλ obtained using the emitted power and photon counting equations. We stress that care should be exercised with the type of detection should be taken and provide the correction factors for the intensity parameters. In addition, we suggest that the integrated intensity (proportional to the areas of the emission band) and the centroid (or barycenter) of the transition for obtaining Ωλ should be determined in the properly Jacobian-transformed spectrum in wavenumbers (or energy). Due to the small widths of the emission bands of typical 4f-4f transitions, the areas and centroids of the bands do not depend on the transformation within the experimental uncertainties. These assessments are relevant because they validate previously determined Ωλ without the proper spectral transformation.