Luminescent properties of novel red-emitting phosphor: Gd 2 O 2 CN 2 :Eu 3+

Eu3+-doped Gd2O2CN2 was firstly synthesized by a classical solid-state reaction of Li2CO3, Eu2O3 and GdF3 under NH3 gas flow in the presence of graphite at low firing temperature. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis indicated that Gd2O2CN2: Eu3+ crystallizes in a trigonal-type structure with space group P-3m1. Gd2O2CN2: Eu3+ shows a sharp red emission band peaking at 626 nm under excitation at 300 nm at room temperature. PL spectra indicates that Eu3+ doped Gd2O2CN2 samples emit the typical emission peaks at 614 nm and 626 nm originated from the hypersensitive electric dipole transition (D-5(0) -> F-7(2)) of Eu3+ ions. The optimized doping concentration of Eu3+ ions was found to be 7.5 at. %, and the critical transfer distance was calculated to be 10.907 angstrom. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America