Trivalent europium-doped strontium molybdate red phosphors in white light-emitting diodes: Synthesis, photophysical properties and theoretical calculations

Eu3+-doped strontium molybdate red phosphors (Sr1-xMoO4:Eu-x (x = 0.01-0.2)) for white light-emitting diodes (LED) were synthesized by the solid-state reaction method. The fluorescent intensities of the as-prepared phosphors were remarkably improved. The excitation and emission spectra demonstrate that these phosphors can be effectively excited by the near-UV light (395 nm) and blue light (466 nm). Their emitted red light peaks are located at 613 nm, and the highest quantum yield value (eta) of the as-grown red phosphor, which is 95.85%, is much higher than that of commercial red phosphor (77.53%). These red phosphors plus commercial yellow powers (1:10) were successfully packaged with the GaN-based blue chips on a piranha frame by epoxy resins. The encapsulated white LED lamps show high performance of the CIE chromaticity coordinates and color temperatures. Moreover, to explain the fluorescent spectra of these phosphors, a complete 3003 x 3003 energy matrix was successfully built by an effective operator Hamiltonian including free ion and crystal field interactions. For the first time, the fluorescent spectra for Eu3+ ion at the tetragonal (S-4) Sr2+ site of SrMoO4 crystal were calculated from a complete diagonalization (of energy matrix) method. The fitting values are close to the experimental results. (C) 2012 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.