Green Fabrication of Lanthanide doped Hydroxide-based Phosphors: Y(OH)3:Eu3+ Nanoparticles for White Light Generation

Phosphors serve as color conversion layers to generate white light with varying optical features including CRI, CCT, and luminous efficacy. However, they have been produced in harsh synthesis conditions such as high temperature, high pressure, and/or employing a huge amount of solvents. In this work, facile, water-based and a rapid method has been proposed to fabricate lanthanide doped hydroxide-based phosphors. In this sense, submicrometer-sized Y(OH)3:Eu3+ particles, as red phosphor, were synthesized in water at ambient conditions in <60 min reaction time. The doping ratio is controlled from 2.5 to 20% in terms of mole. Meanwhile, first principle calculations were also performed on Y(OH)3:Eu3+ to understand the preferable doping scenario and its optoelectronic properties. As an application, these fabricated red phosphors were integrated into PDMS/YAG:Ce3+ composite to generate white light. The resulting white light showed a remarkable improvement (~24%) for LER, a slight reduction of CCT (from 3900K to 3600K), and an unchanged CRI (~60) as the amount of Y(OH)3:Eu3+ increases.