Impact of Si-doping on the Eu+ luminescence in AlN: Eu phosphors

A serious obstacle for the development of full color field emission display (FED) devices is the lack of suitable blue luminescent materials with high luminance. Thus, the exploration of new blue-emitting phosphors is required. Rare-earth doped (oxy)nitride phosphors are considered as great candidates for phosphors in FEDs. Indeed, wavelength-tunable luminescence is obtained by doping with different rare-earth ions, varying the concentration of rare-earth and changing the host lattice composition. Thus, we have found that AlN codoped with Si and Eu exhibits a blue broadband emission. In comparison with Y₂SiO₅:Ce³⁺, AlN:Si,Eu shows higher luminescence efficiency, higher color purity, lower saturation behavior and longer lifetime. Thus, AlN:Si,Eu is a promising candidate for blue phosphor in FEDs. However, the exact role of Si is not clarified. It is required to understand the impact of Si for the enhancement of blue emission of AINEu phosphors.