Luminescence and photoconversion properties of Ce-doped Ca3Sc2Si3O12 crystal

This work is dedicated to investigation of the luminescent properties of the prospective photoconversion material based on the crystal of Ce3+ doped Ca3Sc2Si3O12 (CSSG) garnet. The GSSG:Ce crystal was grown using the micro-pulling-down (μPD) method. The CSSG:Ce crystal exhibited an intensive photoluminescence (PL) emission band with two sub-bands peaked at 504 and 545 nm, corresponding to 5d-4f (2F5/2;7/2) transitions. Furthermore, we have investigated also the formation of cerium multicenters in the GSSG:Ce crystal using analyses of the structure of Ce3+ photoluminescence emission and excitation spectra under excitation of the luminescence of this crystal by synchrotron radiation. The formation of Ce3+-multicenters in CSSG:Ce garnet is caused by the local inhomogeneity of the dodecahedral sites of garnet lattice due to localization of the hetero-valent Sc3+ and Si4+ cations in the octahedral and tetrahedral positions of the garnet host. The existence of Ce3+ multicenters resulted in a significant enhancement of the Ce3+ emission band in the red range and improving the performance of conventional YAG:Ce phosphor. The next task of our work was to evaluate the possibility of application of the GSSG:Ce crystal as a light phosphor-converter (pc) for white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs). In the frame of this task, we have successfully developed a prototype of WLED by employing the CSSG:Ce crystal as a phosphor-converter (pc) with blue 450 emitting LED as well as investigated the color characteristics of this pc-WLED. •Ca3Sc2Si3O12:Ce (CSSG:Ce) crystal was grown by micropulling down method.•Presence of two different Ce1 and Ce2 emission centers was detected CSSG:Ce crystals.•Luminescent properties and energy structure of F+ and F centers in CSSG host were studied.•Prototypes of a white LED based on CSSG:Ce phosphor and blue LED were developed.