Luminescence and advanced mass spectroscopic characterization of sodium zinc orthophosphate phosphor for low-cost light-emitting diodes.

A new rare-earth-free NaZnPO4:Mn(2+) (NZP:Mn) phosphor powder has been developed by our group and investigated meticulously for the first time using secondary ion mass spectroscopy and chemical imaging techniques. The studies confirmed the effective incorporation of Mn(2+) into the host lattice, resulting in an enhancement of photoluminescence intensity. Phase purity has been verified and structure parameters have been determined successfully by Rietveld refinement studies. The NZP:Mn phosphor powder exhibits strong absorption bands in the ultraviolet and visible (300-470 nm) regions with a significant broad yellow-green (~543 nm) emission due to the characteristic spin forbidden d-d transition ((4)T1→(6)A1) of Mn(2+) ions, indicating weak crystal field strength at the zinc-replaced manganese site. The decay constants are a few milliseconds, which is a pre-requisite for applications in many display devices. The results obtained suggest that this new phosphor powder will find many interesting applications in semiconductor physics, as cost-effective light-emitting diodes (LEDs), as solar cells and in photo-physics.

Emerging cool white light emission from Dy(3+) doped single phase alkaline earth niobate phosphors for indoor lighting applications.

Single-phase cool white-light emitting BaNb2O6:Dy(3+) phosphors have been synthesized via a conventional solid-state reaction method and characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations and spectrofluorophotometric measurements. XRD and Rietveld structural refinement studies confirm that all the samples exhibit pure orthorhombic structure [space group -C2221(20)]. SEM observations reveal the dense particle packaging with irregular morphology in a micron range. The as-prepared phosphors exhibit blue (482 nm) and yellow (574 nm) emissions under 349, 364, 386 and 399 nm excitations corresponding to (4)F9/2→(6)HJ (J = 15/2, 13/2) transitions of Dy(3+) ions. The energy transfer mechanism between Dy(3+) ions has been studied in detail and the luminescence decay lifetime for the (4)F9/2 level was found to be around 146.07 µs for the optimized phosphor composition. The calculated Commission Internationale de L'Eclairage (CIE) chromaticity coordinates for the optimized phosphor are (x = 0.322, y = 0.339), which are close to the National Television Standard Committee (NTSC) (x = 0.310, y = 0.316) coordinates. The values of CIE chromaticity coordinates and correlated color temperature (CCT) of 5907 K endorse cool white-light emission from the phosphor. The study reveals that BaNb2O6:Dy(3+) phosphor could be a potential candidate for near ultra-violet (NUV) excited white-LED applications.