A color tunable and white light emitting Ca2Si5N8:Ce3+,Eu2+ phosphor via efficient energy transfer for near-UV white LEDs

Achieving tunable color and white light emission in a single phase phosphor is a challenging issue. Here, a series of Ce3+-Eu2+ co-doped Ca2Si5N8 phosphors were successfully synthesized by a high temperature solid state method. Luminescence properties, energy transfer (ET) and thermal quenching of the as-synthesized samples were investigated in detail. The emission color of as-prepared Ca1.94Na0.03Si5N8:0.03Ce3+,yEu2+ (0.0000 ≤ y ≤ 0.0035) could be tuned from blue to white light and eventually to orange via ET by changing the Ce3+/Eu2+ ratio. ET efficiency from Ce3+ to Eu2+ could reach up to 68.0% and the ET mechanism was demonstrated to be a non-radiative dipole-dipole interaction. More importantly, when y = 0.0012, approximate standard white light was generated with CIE coordinates of (0.335, 0.341). A photoluminescence (PL) mechanism was proposed to understand PL properties and thermal properties of the as-prepared phosphors. Additionally, the achieved white light phosphor Ca1.9388Na0.03Si5N8:0.03Ce3+,0.0012Eu2+ had good thermal stability, exhibiting about 75% at 150 °C and 64% at 200 °C of the emission intensity at 25 °C, respectively. The chromaticity shifts of Ca1.9388Na0.03Si5N8:0.03Ce3+,0.0012Eu2+ were 0.0032 at 150 °C and 0.0152 at 200 °C, respectively, which were only 27% and 42% of the commercial white-emitting phosphor mixture at the corresponding temperature. Furthermore, a proof-of-concept white LED was fabricated by combining the single component phosphor Ca1.9388Na0.03Si5N8:0.03Ce3+,0.0012Eu2+ with a near UV LED chip. All results demonstrate the promising application of the Ca2Si5N8:Ce3+,Eu2+ single phosphor for near-UV white LEDs.