Controlled mechano-luminescence properties of SrGa2O4:Tb3+ co-doping with Dy3+ and Eu3+ ions

Trap-controlled mechano-luminescence (ML) featuring photon emission under mechanical stimuli provides promising applications such as dynamic imaging of force, integrated optical sensing, information storage, and anti-counterfeiting encryption. However, the corresponding emission with a single color still limits the application of ML materials. Here, a trap-controlled ML phosphor of SrGa2O4:Tb3+ (SGO:Tb3+) with a green-emission is investigated with an adjustable ML color. The relationship between ML and thermoluminescence (TL) is verified by co-doping with Dy3+ and Eu3+ ions for the manipulation of the constructed traps. Accordingly, the as-explored ML phosphor with multicolor output is employed to create encrypted anticounterfeiting patterns, which produces bright and spatially resolvable optical codes under the single-point dynamic pressure of a ballpoint pen. Hence, it provides a new approach to achieve ML with multicolor and gives us an insight into understanding the mechanism of the ML procedure.