Synthesis and photoluminescent characteristics of Sm3+ -doped Ba-3(PO4)(2) phosphor hierarchical architectures

Abstract

Highly uniform, petal-like, 3D-structured Ba-3(PO4)(2) phosphors were fabricated by facile wet chemical aqueous solution route. The production mechanism of Ba-3(PO4)(2) petal structure was optimized using XRD and SEM analysis grown under various temperatures and reaction times. Phase transition of Ba-3(PO4)(2) from the hexagonal to rhombohedral occurred with increasing reaction temperature. The Rietveld refinement based XRD phase analysis demonstrated the successful formation of monophase Ba-3(PO4)(2). Later, Ba-3(PO4)(2) was doped with various amounts of Sm3+ ions and with charge balance by Li+ ions. Ba-3(PO4)(2): Sm3++Li+ samples at 0.06 mol of Sm3+ concentration displayed maximum luminescence intensity in response to 402 nm excitation. Increasing the Sm3+ content over the 0.06 mol, emission quenching behavior was observed and it was explained by Dexter's theory. The chromaticity coordinates of the Ba-3(PO4)(2):Sm3++Li+ phosphor material were calculated to be (0.5558, 0.4380), suggesting that it will be a potential yellow phosphor for use in W-LEDs in combination with blue LEDs chips.