Experimental and theoretical spectroscopic study of praseodymium(III) doped strontium aluminate phosphors

SrAl2O4: Pr3+ phosphors were successfully prepared by the high-temperature solid-phase method. The structure and photoluminescence properties of different Pr3+ concentrations doped SrAl2O4: Pr3+ were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and fluorescence spectrophotometer, respectively. Moreover, the role of Li+ ions as charge compensation for SrAl2O4: Pr3+ was also studied in detail. To better understand the fluorescent mechanism of SrAl2O4: Pr3+ phosphors, a complete 91 × 91 Hamiltonian energy matrix was built by an effective operator Hamiltonian including free ion and crystal-field interactions. The fluorescent spectrum for Pr3+ ions at Sr2+ sites of SrAl2O4 crystal was successfully studied from a complete diagonalization (of energy matrix) method of 4f2 electron configurations. The theoretical values are in agreement with the observed data.