Novel and wide-ranging color tuning photoluminescence properties of Tb3+/Eu3+ doped garnet-type Li3Lu3Te2O12 phosphor: Energy transfer and enhanced thermal stability

•LLT: xTb3+, yEu3+ phosphors with garnet-type structure were prepared for the first time by solid-state reaction route.•The emitting-color was tunable designing ratio of Tb3+/Eu3+.•The introduction of Eu3+ significantly improves thermal stability, Tb3+ does the opposite. The thermal quenching behavior can be optimized by adjusting the dopant content.•The mechanism of Tb3+→Eu3+ energy transfer was investigated. In order to promote the development of white light emitting diodes (WLEDs) with improved color reproduction, the challenge by discovering novel photoluminescence color tuning phosphors via energy transfer (ET) is essential. However, the mechanism of energy transfer among dopants and its effect on ET efficiency have not been fully understood. Therefore, the photoluminescence color tuning in a variety of matrix structures based on energy transfer always needs to be discussed further. Herein, a series of wide-ranging color tunable Li3Lu3Te2O12 phosphors doped with Tb3+/Eu3+ were synthesized by high-temperature solid-state reaction for the first time. The crystalline structure, morphology and chemical composition of as-prepared phosphors were characterized. The excitation and emission spectra, fluorescence decay curve, and the relationship among emission intensity, doping concentration of dopants and CIE coordinates were investigated in detail. The results indicate that photoluminescence color tuning from green to red was realized by designing the Tb3+→Eu3+ energy transfer in Li3Lu3Te2O12:Tb3+, Eu3+ phosphors. The approximation theory of Reisfeld and the electric multipole interaction theory of Dexter were used to analyze the ET mechanism, which reveals that the dipole-dipole and dipole-quadrupole interaction is responsible for the ET process of Tb3+→Tb3+ and Tb3+→Eu3+. In addition, the thermal stability of the as-prepared phosphors was also revealed. Unforgettably, the samples with reasonable design ratio of Tb3+/Eu3+ exhibits a wider color tuning range, excellent luminescence intensity under n-UV excitation and outstanding thermal stability comparable to commercial Y2O3:Eu3+ phosphor after surface treatment, whose emission intensity at 150 °C exceeds 70% of the initial value. In addition, a prototype WLED device was fabricated with representative phosphor and commercial blue phosphor BaMgAl10O17: Eu2+ (BAM: Eu2+), which emitted warm-white light with great color rendering index (CRI) of 84.8, softer correlated color temperature (CCT) of 3989 K and the c