Efficient CrIII Ion Governed Energy Migration for Broadband Near‐Infrared Emission in Ca3Sc2Ge3O12 Garnet Phosphor

Abstract The rapid growth in phosphor‐converted near‐infrared light‐emission diodes (NIR‐LEDs) has led to the development of NIR emitter with high efficiency, broadband emission and high thermal stability. In this work, an efficient broad NIR emission of Cr 3+ in novel Ca 3 Sc 2 Ge 3 O 12 (CSGO) garnet‐based host was developed for the first time, which located at 700 to 1000 nm peaking at 817 nm with a broad bandwidth of ~128 nm. Such a broadband NIR emission originated from the preferential occupancy of Cr 3+ in Sc 3+ sites with weak octahedral field, which was manifested by the luminescence spectrum and decay behaviors. The Cr 3+ ‐doping concentration was regulated to achieve a good internal quantum efficiency (IQE) of 72.1 % and a fantastic thermal stability (at 423 K, sustained approximately 85 % of the initial intensity). The mechanism for concentration and thermal quenching was further investigated. Benefiting from the excellent luminescence features, a prototype NIR‐LEDs was assembled via integrating the optimized samples with commercial blue InGaN LED chips, which exhibited a satisfactory photoelectric property and a brilliant performance in night vision. These results demonstrated the as‐obtained sample to be a great potential candidate for NIR‐LEDs.