Phosphor-converted white light-emitting diodes (pc-WLEDs) are emerging as an indispensable solid-state light source for the next generation lighting industry and display systems due to their unique properties including but not limited to energy savings, environment-friendliness, small volume, and long persistence. Until now, major challenges in pc-WLEDs have been to achieve high luminous efficacy, high chromatic stability, brilliant color-rending properties, and price competitiveness against fluorescent lamps, which rely critically on the phosphor properties. A comprehensive understanding of the nature and limitations of phosphors and the factors dominating the general trends in pc-WLEDs is of fundamental importance for advancing technological applications. This report aims to provide the most recent advances in the synthesis and application of phosphors for pc-WLEDs with emphasis specifically on: (a) principles to tune the excitation and emission spectra of phosphors: prediction according to crystal field theory, and structural chemistry characteristics (e.g. covalence of chemical bonds, electronegativity, and polarization effects of element); (b) pc-WLEDs with phosphors excited by blue-LED chips: phosphor characteristics, structure, and activated ions (i.e. Ce 3+ and Eu 2+ ), including YAG:Ce, other garnets, non-garnets, sulfides, and (oxy)nitrides; (c) pc-WLEDs with phosphors excited by near ultraviolet LED chips: single-phased white-emitting phosphors (e.g. Eu 2+ –Mn 2+ activated phosphors), red-green-blue phosphors, energy transfer, and mechanisms involved; and (d) new clues for designing novel high-performance phosphors for pc-WLEDs based on available LED chips. Emphasis shall also be placed on the relationships among crystal structure, luminescence properties, and device performances. In addition, applications, challenges and future advances of pc-WLEDs will be discussed.

Phosphors in phosphor-converted white light-emitting diodes: Recent advances in materials, techniques and properties

Energy transfer in oxidic phosphors

Publisher Summary Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a spectroscopic process by which energy is passed nonradiatively among molecules over long distances. The “donor” molecule, which must be a fluorophore, absorbs a photon and transfer this energy nonradiatively to the “acceptor” molecule. Energy can be transferred over distances on the order of common macromolecular dimensions. This chapter discusses the applications of FRET to nucleic acid molecules conjugated to dye molecules; but in general, the donor-acceptor pairs can be free in solution, one or both bound to a macromolecule, or be an inherent part of the structure. The chapter discusses FRET specifying the physical parameters that are available from a variety of fluorescence measurements. In the chapter, some basic considerations and experimental procedures are described that are necessary to make reliable FRET measurements. It also discusses some difficulties that can arise in the experimental proceedings and data analysis and the sources of experimental error are pointed out.

Fluorescence resonance energy transfer and nucleic acids.

Lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) are capable of converting near-infra-red excitation into visible and ultraviolet emission. Their unique optical properties have advanced a broad range of applications, such as fluorescent microscopy, deep-tissue bioimaging, nanomedicine, optogenetics, security labelling and volumetric display. However, the constraint of concentration quenching on upconversion luminescence has hampered the nanoscience community to develop bright UCNPs with a large number of dopants. This review surveys recent advances in developing highly doped UCNPs, highlights the strategies that bypass the concentration quenching effect, and discusses new optical properties as well as emerging applications enabled by these nanoparticles.

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Advances in highly doped upconversion nanoparticles

Lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) have attracted considerable interest due to their superior physicochemical features, such as large anti-Stokes shifts, low autofluorescence background, low toxicity and high penetration depth, which make them extremely suitable for use as alternatives to conventional downshifting luminescence bioprobes like organic dyes and quantum dots for various biological applications. A fundamental understanding of the photophysics of lanthanide-doped UCNPs is of vital importance for discovering novel optical properties and exploring their new applications. In this review, we focus on the most recent advances in the development of lanthanide-doped UCNPs as potential luminescent nano-bioprobes by means of our customized lanthanide photophysics measurement platforms specially designed for upconversion luminescence, which covers from their fundamental photophysics to bioapplications, including electronic structures (energy levels and local site symmetry of emitters), excited-state dynamics, optical property designing, and their promising applications for in vitro biodetection of tumor markers. Some future prospects and efforts towards this rapidly growing field are also envisioned.

Lanthanide-doped upconversion nano-bioprobes: electronic structures, optical properties, and biodetection

A theory is presented for concentration quenching in solid systems, based on the migration of excitation energy from one activator center to another and eventually to an imperfection which may act as an energy sink. Calculations are made on the dependence of the fluorescence yield on concentration, and to indicate typical activator concentrations at which appreciable quenching may be expected to occur. If the transition in the activator is of the electric dipole or electric quadrupole type, appreciable quenching may arise when the activator concentration is 10‐3 to 10‐2; if it is a magnetic dipole transition, transfer will occur by exchange, rather than by overlapping of magnetic dipole fields, and the critical concentration will be of the order of a few percent. The implications of transfer phenomena upon the observed absence of luminescence in most ``pure'' inorganic crystals are discussed, and it is concluded that transfer rates are so high in strongly absorbing crystals that the energy can easily migrate to a very few sinks dispersed throughout the lattice.

D. L. Dexter

Papers

Theory of Concentration Quenching in Inorganic Phosphors