Tuning the Red Emission to Instigate Intrinsic White-Light Emission in Single-Phase Phosphor with Excellent Color Rendering Index

Abstract

There is ever-growing interest to develop intrinsic white light emitting single-phase phosphors that have high CRI, devoid of bluish tinge, ease of synthesis and are scalable. Herein, manipulating vacuum pressure to instigate white light emission in Cu2+-doped-ZnS phosphors is reported. The detailed X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy confirm the cubic phase of Cu2+-doped-ZnS phosphor having agglomerated particles (similar to 130-150 nm). The incorporation of Cu2+ in the ZnS lattice is substantiated by the anti-Stokes shift of Raman peaks and shifting of XRD peaks to higher 2 theta values. Upon increasing Cu2+ doping concentration, the resulted decrease in the FWHM of XRD peaks implies shrinkage of the ZnS lattice. Interestingly, by tailoring the excitation wavelength, the stoichiometry of dopant ion, and defect states by varying the vacuum pressure, the optimized ZSC-3 (3% Cu2+-doped-ZnS) displays the origin of clear blue, green and red emission bands, consequently giving rise to white light emission (CIE values: 0.345:0398). The PLQY and average lifetime calculated for ZSC-3 are 5.98% and 1.5 ms, respectively. Such intense white light emission prompted to fabricate a prototype using a 310 nm UV LED. It exhibits high CRI (97) and warm CCT (4538 K), meeting highly desired values for a white light-emitting phosphor for different lighting and electroluminescence applications.