Structural Confinement and Energetic Matching Synergistic Effect toward a High-Energy Transfer Efficiency and a Significant Red Emission Enhancement in a Eu2+,Ln3+ Co-doped Sr9LiMn(PO4)7 Whitlockite Phosphor

Despite an encouraging progress, Mn2+-activated red phosphors suffer from an insufficient emission intensity and a bad color purity. Thus, it is necessary to find a new strategy to realize a bright red emission through highly efficient Mn2+ sensitization. Herein, manipulating Eu2+-sensitized Sr9LiMn(PO4)7 (SLMP) composition by Ln3+ heterovalent substitution is proved to be able to substantially gain a tremendous Mn2+ emission enhancement and result in a dominant red Mn2+ emission. It is found that the emission enhancement ratio is proportional to the order of lanthanide contraction. Notably, Tb3+ doping realizes a 427-fold rise in the integrated emission intensity compared with the SLMP host, which is close to the theoretical maximum of 500. An underlying mechanism for Mn2+ red emission enhancement is proposed, which is attributed to a high-energy transfer probability from Eu2+ to Mn2+via Ln3+-induced further structural confinement plus an energetic match effect. Meanwhile, homovalent (Ca2+) substitution could precisely tailor Mn2+ emitting color from orange-red to deep red. A warm-white LED device with a low color temperature of 3394 K, a high color-rendering index of 90.2, and suitable CIE coordinates of (0.403, 0.373) is fabricated using optimized phosphor SLMP:Eu2+, Tb3+. These results might reveal a new strategy to develop new red-emitting phosphors with a bright and highly purified red Mn2+ emission.