A new color-tunable persistent luminescent phosphor-in-glass via radiative energy transfer

Materials with multicolor persistent luminescence (PersL) are desirable in color-on-demand applications, such as dark-light multicolor displays and white-emitting persistent light sources. However, such phosphors with long afterglow duration and high afterglow brightness are rarely reported. In this work, a color-tunable PersL phosphor-in-glass (PiG) was achieved via a radiation energy transfer from Sr2MgSi2O7:Eu2+,Dy3+ (SMS) PersL phosphor to Y3Al5O12:Ce3+ (YAG) color-conversion phosphor. Impressively, 5 wt% SMS and 1.5 wt% YAG co-doped PiG exhibits an afterglow duration of 44 h and an afterglow brightness of 50.9 mcd/m2 60 min after Xe lamp light charging, close to those of the commercial SMS phosphor. Impressively, the PersL color of the PiGs can be tuned from blue to yellow by simply adjusting the YAG content. Our results will provide a facile and effective strategy to produce multicolor PersL materials for practical applications.