A promising red-emitting phosphor SrLiAl3N4:Eu2+ for field emission displays

Exploring efficient and stable phosphors have already attract highly public attentions and always been considered as a crucial issue in the development of field emission displays (FEDs). In order to discover the potential application for FEDs, the red phosphor, SrLiAl3N4:Eu2+, was synthesized by a simple preparation method at low temperature and the photoluminescence(PL) as well as cathodoluminescence (CL) performances were studied in our work. The SrLiAl3N4: Eu2+ phosphor exhibits irregular spherical morphology with a soft agglomeration and the mean particle size is 4.52 µm. When excited by a low-voltage electron beam, it shows a narrow band red emission in the 600–700 nm range with the 51 nm of full width at half maximum (FWHM) and the strongest emission peak is located at 647 nm, which is attributed to the 4f65d → 4f7 electron transition of Eu2+. The effects of different Eu2+ doping concentration and probe current, accelerating voltage, as well as electron bombardment time on the CL performance of SrLiAl3N4:Eu2+ were studied in detail and found that the optimal sample, SrLiAl3N4:0.5%Eu2+, exhibits no saturation effect and excellent degradation property compared with the commercial Y2O3:Eu3+ phosphor. In view of the prominent CL performance of SrLiAl3N4:Eu2+, it can be considered as candidate phosphor in full color FEDs.