Nitride phosphor-in-glass films enabling high-performance white light in transmissive and reflective laser lighting

Phosphor-converted laser lighting has become a credible candidate in next-generation high-brightness white lighting, and the configuration types of phosphor converters have a great influence on the opto-thermal performances of laser lighting. In this work, we proposed nitride phosphor-in-glass films (PIGFs) for high-brightness laser lighting and investigated the opto-thermal performances of PIGFs in transmissive (T) and reflective (R) modes. The Y-PIGFs were prepared by low-temperature sintering a mixture of yellow-emitting La3Si6N11:Ce3+ (LSN) phosphor and borosilicate glass, and the Y/R-PIGFs were achieved by incorporating red-emitting CaAlSiN3:Eu2+ (CASN) phosphor into the Y-PIGFs. The PIGFs display higher thermal stability and luminescence intensity than the raw phosphors. By tailoring the thickness of Y-PIGFs, the Y-PIGF with a film thickness of 75 μm achieves the luminous efficacy of 199.4 lm/W and 91.5 lm/W in the T mode and R mode, respectively, and the PIGF realizes the highest luminous efficacy of 207.8 lm/W by collecting backward light in the T mode. At the CASN/LSN ratio of 0.20, the Y/R-PIGF enables high-quality white light with a color rendering index (CRI) higher than 89. Furthermore, under 4.82 W laser excitation, the central temperatures of Y-PIGF in the T-mode and R-mode are only 98 °C and 67.4 °C, respectively. The results indicate that the PIGFs enable high-performance white laser lighting with distinct opto-thermal properties by adjusting configuration types.