Photoluminescent Materials for Solid‐State Lighting: State of the Art and Future Challenges

The efficient generation of white light by phosphor‐converted LEDs (pcLEDs) suffers from a trade‐off between high color rendition, low correlated color temperatures, and luminous efficacy. While this is partially an inherent problem, it is also caused by the spectral efficiency of the materials used. The particular challenges for materials research lie, amongst the demanding general requirements, in finding very narrow‐band or line‐emitting materials: excitable with blue light, emitting in the near red. A way to design Mn(IV) activated line emitters is proposed, and methods for high‐throughput combinatorial syntheses are specified. The generation of white light using blue LEDs and luminescent materials is discussed with respect to the phosphors currently available. The need for efficient red‐emitting phosphors is highlighted and the use of Mn(IV) is proposed as a possible route towards line emitters. Combinatorial approaches to materials synthesis are briefly described.