Month: March 2022

Mahdi’s collaborative work with the group of Prof Rong-jun Xie on “MxLa1−xSiO2−yNz (M = Ca/Sr/Ba): Elucidating and Tuning the Structure and Eu2+ Local Environments to Develop Full-Visible Spectrum Phosphors” has just been published in Chemistry of Materials! The local environments of rare-earth activators have profound effects on the luminescent properties of phosphors. Here, we elucidate the crystal structure of the LaSiO2N phosphor host using a combination of density functional theory calculations and synchrotron Xray diffraction. We determine that LaSiO2N crystallizes in the monoclinic C2/c instead of the hexagonal P6̅c2 space group. To improve the luminescence performance, divalent cations M (M = Ca/Sr/Ba) were introduced into LaSiO2N to eliminate Eu3+. A family of apatite M1+xLa4−xSi3O13−x/2:Eu2+ (x ∼ 1.5, M = Ca/Sr/Ba) phosphors was further developed with unprecedented ultra-broadband (290 nm) emission spectra and excellent thermal stability. Detailed local environment investigations reveal that the formation of oxygen vacancies within and beyond the first shell environment of Eu2+ is responsible for the redshift and broadening of the emission spectra via geometrical alteration of the Eu2+ local environment. This work provides new insights for understanding and optimizing the luminescence of rare-earth phosphors. Check out this work here.