Facile Synthesis of Ce3+, Eu3+ Co-Doped YAG Nanophosphor for White Light-Emitting Diodes

Abstract

Luminescent Ce3+, Eu3+ co-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Y3Al5O12, YAG) nanophosphors were successfully synthesized by a facile hydrothermal-assistant combustion method without a reducing atmosphere. The photoluminescence (PL) spectrum of the as-prepared YAG:Ce3+, Eu3+ nanophosphors consisted of a typical broad yellow emission band attributed to the characteristic emission of Ce3+ and several sharp emission bands in red spectral region attributed to the characteristic emission of Eu3+ due to the successful co-doping of Eu3+ into YAG host lattice, and the intensities of these sharp red emission bands could be adjusted by varying the Eu3+ doping concentration. The energy transfer from Ce3+ to Eu3+ inside YAG was also investigated, and the results showed that both Ce3+ and Eu3+ could be efficiently excited by 465 nm blue light, which indicated the red emission of YAG:Ce3+, Eu3+ under 465 nm blue light excitation was not merely enhanced at the cost of emission intensity of Ce3+. Moreover, YAG: Ce3+, Eu3+ nanophosphors were combined with blue light-emitting diode (LED) chip to fabricate white LED, and the resulting white LED showed good performance with a luminous efficiency of 70.4 lm/W, Ra of 82, and Tc of 4964 K at 100 mA.