Tunable luminescence of Ce3+/Tb3+-codoped BaSrBO3F through energy transfer: Potential single-component blue-green-emitting phosphors

• Color-tunable blue-green-emitting BSBF: Ce3+, Tb3+ phosphors were synthesized.
• The emitted colors of the phosphors were tuned by changing Ce3+/Tb3+ ratio.
• The energy transfer mechanism from Ce3+ to Tb3+ in the phosphors was investigated.
• The critical distance for energy transfer of BSBF: Ce3+, Tb3+ was confirmed.

Single-component color-tunable BaSrBO3F: Ce3+, Tb3+ phosphors were firstly synthesized by the solid-state reactions. X-ray powder diffraction profiles, luminescent properties, CIE chromaticity variation, and energy transfer of the obtained phosphors were investigated in detail. Under near-ultraviolet irradiation, BaSrBO3F: Ce3+, Tb3+ not only exhibits a blue emission band attributed to the 4f05d1–4f1 transition of Ce3+, but also gives a series of sharp emission lines due to the 5D4–7FJ (J = 6, 5, 4, 3) transitions of Tb3+. By properly tuning the relative composition of Ce3+/Tb3+ through the principle of energy transfer, the varied emitted colors from blue through cyan (greenish-blue) and eventually to green were achieved. Moreover, the energy transfer from Ce3+ to Tb3+ ions in BSBF: Ce3+, Tb3+ phosphors was demonstrated via the dipole–dipole interaction mechanism, and the critical distance (RC) was calculated to be 18.51 Å. These results suggest that our developed BaSrBO3F: Ce3+, Tb3+ phosphors have potential applications as single-component color-tunable phosphor-converted materials for near-ultraviolet light-emitting diodes.