Abstract
Many mineralogists believe that fluorite emits violet fluorescence under UV light, but a special fluorite from Japan emits yellow fluorescence under UV light. The analysis by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) shows that this fluorite includes high concentrations of Dy together with various rare-earth (RE) impurities other than Pm and Eu. Photoluminescence (PL) emission and excitation spectra of the fluorite are investigated at 10, 80 and 300 K. The origin of yellow fluorescence is attributed to the electronic transition within Dy3+. Profiles of the PL and excitation spectra depend on the excitation wavelength and on the observation wavelength, respectively. The obtained spectra are ascribed to the RE ions Ce3+, Sm3+, Tb3+, Dy3+, Ho3+, Er3+, Sm2+ and Yb2+ in the fluorite. In natural fluorite, the low concentration of Eu enables us to observe the bright fluorescence characteristic of trivalent RE ions, instead of the bluish violet fluorescence due to Eu2+.
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Acknowledgments.
The authors thank the late Honorary Professor Tadayuki NUMANO of Okayama University, for supplying the natural fluorite used in this study. The analysis of the abundance of the RE ions was carried out at Satellite Venture Business Laboratory (SVBL) in Okayama University. The authors are also grateful to Doctor Kyue-Hyung Lee for performing the ICP-MS analysis.
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Sidike, A., Kusachi, I. & Yamashita, N. Natural fluorite emitting yellow fluorescence under UV light. Phys Chem Minerals 30, 478–485 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00269-003-0341-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00269-003-0341-3