Sensitive Analytical Determinations of Fluorescent and Non-Fluorescent Ions by Laser-Excited Luminescence

Abstract

The presence of rare earth ions can be determined by co-precipitating in CaF₂, recovering the powder, igniting, and exciting luminescence with a tunable dye laser. Narrow bandwidth transitions permit selective excitation and selective monitoring of specific rare earths in specific crystallographic sites. The presence of another impurity ion near a rare earth creates a new site. Thus the impurity ion can be determined by the appearance of new lines in the spectrum characteristic of this impurity ion. Other schemes for the determination of non-fluorescent ions were discussed.