Synthesis and photoluminescent characteristics of Sm3+-doped Ba3(PO4)2 phosphor hierarchical architectures

Abstract

Highly uniform, petal-like, 3D-structured Ba3(PO4)2 phosphors were fabricated by facile wet chemical aqueous solution route. The production mechanism of Ba3(PO4)2 petal structure was optimized using XRD and SEM analysis grown under various temperatures and reaction times. Phase transition of Ba3(PO4)2 from the hexagonal to rhombohedral occurred with increasing reaction temperature. The Rietveld refinement based XRD phase analysis demonstrated the successful formation of monophase Ba3(PO4)2. Later, Ba3(PO4)2 was doped with various amounts of Sm3+ ions and with charge balance by Li+ ions. Ba3(PO4)2: Sm3++Li+ samples at 0.06 mol of Sm3+ concentration displayed maximum luminescence intensity in response to 402 nm excitation. Increasing the Sm3+ content over the 0.06 mol, emission quenching behavior was observed and it was explained by Dexter’s theory. The chromaticity coordinates of the Ba3(PO4)2:Sm3++Li+ phosphor material were calculated to be (0.5558, 0.4380), suggesting that it will be a potential yellow phosphor for use in W-LEDs in combination with blue LEDs chips.