Luminescence of undoped and Eu3+ activated zinc gallate phosphor: Synthesis, unusual intense 5D0 → 7F4 red emission

A series of Eu3+-doped ZnGa2O4 samples were synthesized via the urea-glycine combustion route. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to investigate the crystallinity of the samples, energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) to explore the elemental composition, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), to observe the vibrational modes of the samples, photoluminescence (PL) to determine the luminescence properties. The XRD data prove that the samples remain single cubic structure even at high concentrations of Eu³⁺, enabling the formation of a unique emission spectrum. The active ion concentration was varied to examine the influence of concentration on luminescent properties. This study revealed a 5D0 →7F4 transition located at 700 nm with unusual intensity that has not been documented in the literature, which suggests that the active ion concentration can influence the luminescent characteristics of the phosphors. The increasing Eu3+ content increases the number of Eu3+ ions in ZnGa2O4 host lattice, which enhances the luminescence efficiency of the phosphor. However, beyond a certain level of Eu3+content (i.e., 3 wt% Eu3+), the number of Eu3+ ions becomes excessive, resulting in a reduction in luminescence efficiency due to concentration quenching. The dipole dipole interaction is elucidated to play a prominent role in the mechanism of Eu3+ quenching in the ZnGa2O4. An assessment of color coordinates based on emission spectra reveals that the coordinates shift from blue to the white light region, and then to red as Eu3+ content increases. This suggests that there is a substantial relationship between the Eu3+ concentration and the measured color coordinates.