Luminescence properties of Tb3+/Eu3+ ions activated LiLaSiO4 phosphors for solid-state lighting and flexible display applications

The synthesis and luminescence properties of Tb3+ and Eu3+ single- and co-doped LiLaSiO4 (LLSO) phosphors with energy transfer mechanisms were reported. The rare-earth ions doped LLSO phosphors were synthesized via a solid-state reaction method and their physical characterizations such as phase purity, surface morphology, and elemental analysis were investigated systematically. For the Tb3+ and Eu3+ single- and co-doped LLSO phosphors, their photoluminescence (PL) properties were studied in detail. The LLSO:Tb3+ and LLSO:Eu3+ single-doped phosphors showed superior red and green emissions due to 5D4→7F5 and 5D0→7F2 in the optimized characteristic electronic transitions under ultraviolet (UV) irradiation, respectively. The luminescence performances for both the LLSO:Tb3+ and LLSO:Eu3+ phosphors were optimized at 0.125 mol of doping ion concentration. Under UV excitation, by adjusting the Eu3+ ion concentration in LLSO:0.125Tb3+/Eu3+ phosphors, the tunable emissions from green to red via yellow-orange were obtained. Thus, the tunable emission spectra and luminescence decay lifetimes with increasing the doping content of acceptor ions (Eu3+) confirmed an efficient energy transfer from Tb3+ to Eu3+ ions in the co-doped samples. The critical distance between Tb3+ and Eu3+ was determined to be 13.26 Å and the energy transfer mechanism from Tb3+ to Eu3+ ions was demonstrated to be a dipole-dipole mechanism interaction. In addition, the temperature-dependent PL study was carried out for the LLSO:0.125Tb3+/0.025Eu3+ co-doped phosphor sample and it showed better thermal stability against the temperature quenching. The Tb3+ and Eu3+ single- and co-doped LLSO/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) flexible composite films were fabricated by mixing the phosphor powders and PDMS solution. Benefiting from the effective protection of the PDMS matrix, the luminescence stability of the composite films was greatly enhanced. Based on the excellent properties of the synthesized phosphors, Tb3+ and Eu3+ single-doped and Tb3+/Eu3+ co-doped LLSO phosphors could serve as a single-phase multicolor-emitting phosphor under UV excitations.