Tunable full-color emitting borosilicate glasses via utilization of Ce3+ ions as multiple energy transfer contributors

A series of trichromatic/white-emitting 15CaO-55B(2)O(3)-30SiO(2) glasses co-doped with Ce3+/Tb3+/Mn2+ were synthesized in air by a melt-quenching method. Ce3+ ions played a role as sensitizers in improving the photoluminescence performance of multi-activators. Dual energy transfer (ET) processes of Ce3+ -> Tb3+ and Ce3+ -> Mn2+ were observed in Ce3+-Mn2+-Tb3+ co-activated glasses. The hues of the fabricated glasses covered the regions from blue, green, to orange-red, and a wide-range-tunable warm white light emission was realized by tuning the ET proportion from excitation source to the co-activated Mn2+ and Tb3+ ions through utilizing Ce3+ ions as the multi-sensitizers. It indicates that these glasses are expected to be potential phosphor candidates for deep UV-pumped white-LED. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.