Advances in Synthesis, Luminescence and Characterization Studies of Red Phosphor

Abstract

Rare earth doped phosphors are an important group of luminescent materials that can render white light. These phosphors play an integral role in development of next generation light sources for illumination. However, the commercially available white light emitting diodes (WLEDs) lacks the red-light component resulting to low colour rendering index. This inculcates the need of development of novel phosphors with remarkable red-light emission. Extensive research work has been conducted for the development of phosphors with high luminescence efficiency, longer life span, compact design and minimum adverse environmental effect. Solid state combustion, coprecipitation, forced hydrolysis technique and sol-gel method are generally used for the synthesis of red phosphor. The luminescence efficiency is highly dependent upon the type of dopant added and its concentration. This review article provides an insight into different routes of red phosphor synthesis, characterization and factors influencing luminescence efficiency. Moreover, Photoluminescence studies of phosphor powder doped with different activators are compared and reported.