Efficiently Emitting Rare-Earth Sodalites by Phase Transformation of Zeolite X and by Direct Synthesis

The potential use of rare-earth-doped zeolitesas new phosphors for trichromatic fluorescent lamps has recently been investigated. Well defined synthesis conditions allow zeolites to be highly transparent in the UV and visible regions of the spectrum and thus well suited as hosts for optically active guest ions or molecules. Here a rare-earth sodalite as a product of the phase transformation of a rare-earth-doped and molybdate-loaded zeolite is presented. The authors employed Eu3+ as the activator, which resulted in bright orange-red emission.