Dehydrogenation-driven to synthesize high-performance Lu2Si4N6C:Ce3+- a broad green-emitting phosphor for full-spectrum lighting

Abstract Green phosphor Lu 2 Si 4 N 6 C:Ce 3+ (LSNC:Ce 3+ ) shows an ideal feasibility to the near ultraviolet LED (n-UV LED) for “Full-Spectrum Lighting” (FSL). However, it is complex to synthesize pure Lu 2 Si 4 N 6 C phase. Herein, we prepared LSNC:Ce 3+ via a novel dehydrogenation-driven high temperature solid-state reaction method, which distinctly optimized the morphology, and then significantly enhanced the photoluminescent performance of LSNC:Ce 3+ . The improving mechanism ascribed to the stepwise dehydrogenation of LuH 3 which was beneficial to further shear LuH 3 particles. The LSNC:Ce 3+ phosphor obtained by the optimized process exhibits excellent thermal stability, and its external quantum efficiency is 57.3%. Interestingly, the intensities of excitation peaks decrease at 375 nm while it increases at 425 nm gradually with the Ce 3+ concentration. It is reasonably ascribed to the different ability of photo-ionization in different 5d levels. Finally, the constructed w-LED with the titled phosphor exhibits a well-distributed warm white light with high color rendering index (Ra = 96.6, R9 = 96, R12 = 82). It indicates that the LSNC:Ce 3+ gives assistance to compensation for the “spectrum chasm” in blue-green region, as well as contributes to the improvement of Ra and R9, that is beneficial for full-spectrum lighting.