Site occupation and energy transfer in full color emitting phosphor Ba2Ca(BO3)2:Ce3+(K+),Eu2+,Mn2+

Abstract

White light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) fabricated by single-phase full color emitting phosphor are an emerging solution for health lighting. The crystallographic site occupation of activators in a proper host lattice is crucial for sophisticated design of such phosphor. Here, we report a high quality white light-emitting phosphor Ba2Ca(BO3)2:Ce3+(K+),Eu2+,Mn2+ with spectral distribution covering whole visible region. Blue light emission originates from Ce3+ ions occupying preferentially Ba2+ site by controlling synthesis conditions. Green and red lights are obtained from Eu2+ occupying Ba2+ (and Ca2+) site and Mn2+ occupying Ca2+ site, respectively. In this triple-doped phosphor, strong red emission with a low concentration of Mn2+ is realized by the efficient energy transfer from Ce3+ and Eu2+ to Mn2+. Furthermore, high quality white light is accomplished by properly tuning the relative doping amount of Ce3+(K+)/Eu2+/Mn2+ based on efficient simultaneous energy transfer. The results indicate that Ba2Ca(BO3)2:Ce3+(K+),Eu2+,Mn2+ is a promising white light-emitting phosphor in WLEDs application.