Luminescence and energy transfer in single-phased emission-tunable tri-color emitting phosphors of SrB6O10:Eu, Mn

A series of single-phased emission-tunable tri-color emitting phosphors were synthesized by high temperature solid state reaction without any reducing agent. In the host of SrB6O10, the introduced Eu3+ ions were partly reduced to Eu2+ in air, because of the electron compensation in the special structure of the host. To get tri-color emitting phosphor, Mn2+ was co-doped in this system, then Eu2+, Eu3+ and Mn2+ luminescent centers co-exist and emit blue, red and green light respectively. The optical properties of the phosphors and energy transfer mechanism between Eu2+/Mn2+ and Eu2+/Eu3+ were investigated through photo-luminescent spectra and spectrum overlapping. The single-phased Eu, Mn co-doped phosphors could be co-excited by the light of 260, 318 and 361 nm, and the chromaticity coordinates of the phosphors were tuned from (0.18, 0.39) to (0.38, 0.29) by different composition of Eu and Mn dopants.