Synthesis of high quality green phosphors by co-precipitation and induction heating

With the development of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) display and lighting industry, new requirements have been put forward for phosphors. Traditional syntheses of phosphors face the problems of slow temperature increase, long holding time and corresponding larger particle size. In this work, a co-precipitation combined with induction heating method was developed for the fast and efficient synthesis of Lu2.97Al5O12:0.03Ce3+ (LuAG:0.03Ce) phosphors. The effects of calcination temperature and holding time on the morphology and luminescence properties were investigated. The phosphor synthesized at 1600 °C for 10 min (10 min@1600 °C) has an average particle size of 500 nm, and exhibits good luminescence properties and thermal stability (maintaining 92.04% of room temperature light intensity at 200 °C). The luminescence intensity and the external quantum efficiency (EQE) of the phosphor (60 min@1500 °C) are higher than those of a commercial phosphor. The light source fabricated with phosphor ceramic prepared by the phosphor (10 min@1500 °C) shows a luminous efficacy (LE) of 193 lm/W. Therefore, co-precipitation combined with induction heating is an energy-saving and promising method for the synthesis of phosphor.