Swapping conventional doping with novel white light emission from La2O3: clitoria ternatea extract

Abstract

The common flower Clitoria ternatea is gifted with organic dyes anthocyanin delphinidin and betalains betacyanin that exhibit broad emission peaks centered at 490 nm and 630 nm. These fresh emission bands in the blue-green and red regions make it a potential white light source that can swap the conventional rare-earth doped phosphor materials. By this line, the extract shows decent emission in its solution state. However, the emission intensity reduces rapidly after a while, owing to the high decay rate of organic dyes in their pure form. Thus, the floral extract is combined with the antioxidant La2O3, reducing the luminescence decay to a noticeable value. The complex formation does not alter the innate La2O3 crystal structure, identified by the XRD peaks, but aids with near-white emission. Upon complex formation, the optical band gap of the host La2O3 falls to the semiconductor range, from 5.1 eV to 2.5 eV. White light emission from La2O3: Clitoria ternatea complex is studied for different extract concentrations and heating conditions, and deemed as a potential replacement for conventional rare-earth doping.