Borate Phosphor

Abstract

Since its invention in 1964 plasma display panels (PDPs) have made the displays attractive for high-profile placement due to its scalability and thin profile. In PDPs, plasma resonance vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) radiation lines of Xe atoms at 147 nm and a molecular Xe at 173 nm are used for the phosphor excitation to emit visible light. The performance and lifetime of a PDP is strongly related to the nature of the phosphors and their resistance to energetic discharge ions, electrons and to solarization from VUV radiations. The most interesting class of inorganic luminescent materials for VUV applications are borates doped with lanthanide ions exhibiting efficient UV and VUV absorption, good maintenance and excellent chromaticity. The borates have become a focus of technological interest due to a variety of physical and chemical features exhibited by these compounds. Borates are boron-oxygen compounds; these can be trigonal or tetrahedral in structure. Owing to possible three-, or fourfold coordination of borate atoms, borates form a great number of compounds with diverse structures. Borates intrinsically possess characteristics that are advantageous for optical materials, which include wide transparency range, large electronic bandgap, good thermal and chemical stability, low preparative temperature, optical stability with good nonlinear characteristics and exceptionally high optical damage threshold. Borate compounds are very good hosts for development of luminescent materials. Variety of borate host materials doped with rare earth and other ions have been reported as phosphor materials for PDP applications. This study investigates the development of borate materials, which satisfies the requirements of phosphors used in PDPs.