Synthesis via interfacial precipitation, color-tunable photoluminescence and improved thermal stability of (Ce1-Tb )PO4 (x = 0–1) microspheres by energy transfer

Abstract A series of well-dispersed (Ce1-xTbx)PO4 (x = 0–1) microspheres, with an average diameter of ∼1.2 μm, have been originally prepared via two-phase interfacial precipitation and subsequent calcination. Characteristics of the as-synthesized and calcination products were investigated by the combined techniques of XRD, FE-SEM, TEM, FT-IR and TG-DSC. Under 275 nm excitation, tuning the emission color from blue (0.17, 0.02) to green (0.30, 0.56) was realized via varying the Tb3+ content and through Ce3+ → Tb3+ energy transfer. The optimal content of Tb3+ was found to be ∼15 at% (x = 0.15), and the energy transfer was determined to occur via electric dipole-dipole interaction. Moreover, both the emissions of Ce3+ and Tb3+ present gradually higher thermal stability with increasing Tb3+ content owing to enhanced energy transfer. The (Ce0.85Tb0.15)PO4 microspheres, which possess the highest absolute quantum efficiency (∼60.1%) across the series and excellent thermal stability (activation energy for thermal quenching of luminescence: ∼0.312 eV), may potentially serve as a single-phase green phosphor for solid-state lighting and field-emission display.