Luminescence properties and dynamical processes of energy transfer in BiPO4: Tb3+,Eu3+ phosphor

A series of new emission-tunable phosphors Bi0.95−yPO4:0.05Tb3+,yEu3+ were synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method with surfactant-free environment. XRD results indicated that phosphors possess the standard BiPO4 monoclinic structure. From the luminescence spectra and decay curves, the energy transfer from Tb3+ to Eu3+ was confirmed. The efficient Tb3+ to Eu3+ energy transfer can be used to tune the emission color from green, yellow to orange by simply changing the concentration of europium, making the materials have potential applications in three-color-based displays and white light illumination. Finally, the energy transfer mechanism between Tb3+ and Eu3+ was demonstrated to be the electric quadrupole-quadrupole interaction based on Dexter׳s energy transfer formula and the Inokuti-Hirayama model.