Preparation and luminescent properties of europium-activated YInGe2O7 phosphors

A novel red emitting phosphor YInGe2O7:Eu3+ has been synthesized using a vibrating milled solid-state reaction with metal oxides and the characterization and optical properties were investigated. The X-ray diffraction profiles showed that all of the peaks are attributed to the monoclinic YInGe2O7 phase as the Eu3+ ions doped, and the second phase of Eu2Ge2O7 was observed in the XRD pattern when the Eu3+ concentration was 100 mol%. In the PL studies, excitation at 464 nm in terms of Eu3+ concentrations in (Y1 − xEux)InGe2O7 powders shows that the (Y1 − xEux)InGe2O7 phosphors display reddish luminescence at about 611 nm belonging to 5D0 → 7F2 electric dipole transition, and the time-resolved 5D0 → 7F2 transition presents a single exponential decay behavior. The saturation of emission intensity excited by intra-4f transitions occurs at a concentration of x = 0.5, indicating that the concentration quenching is active when the x > 0.5.