New phosphors of β-BaB2O4:RE3+ (RE3+ = Eu3+, Tb3+)

Vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) phosphors are indispensable material to the development of a new generation white-LED, visual display and etc. Searching an ideal host of phosphors from NLO materials is one of effective approaches. Employing excellent NLO crystal β-BaB2O4 (β-BBO) as matrix material, we have synthesized lanthanide ions (Eu3+ or Tb3+)-doped β-BBO phosphors by solid-state reaction, and have investigated their luminescent properties, the optimal doping amount of RE3+ (Eu3+ and Tb3+) by ultraviolet wave excitation, decay curves and lifetimes, respectively. For red phosphor, the measured dominating emission peak (610 nm) was attributed to 5D0→7F2 transition of Eu3+. For green phosphor, β-BBO:Tb3+ emits bright green at 542 nm with 278 nm excited light. The concentration quenching curve showed that the optimal concentration of Eu3+ and Tb3+ in β-BBO were about 22.00 mol% and 10.00 mol% (theoretical value), corresponding to the effective value of 20.60 mol% and 9.20 mol% measured by ICP, respectively. The variety of lattice parameters of β-BBO:RE3+ (RE3+ = Eu3+, Tb3+), by contrast to β-BBO, has been calculated according to the XRD data. The luminescence mechanism of RE3+-doped β-BBO (Eu3+ and Tb3+) were analyzed. Chromaticity coordinates, color temperature of β-BBO:RE3+ (Eu3+ and Tb3+) were also calculated separately according to the emission spectra, the value of CIE coordinates indicated that the synthesized phosphors have good color purity. The impact of flux-grown synthetic method on the luminescence intensity of as-prepared β-BBO:RE3+ (RE3+ = Eu3+, Tb3+) was also investigated.