• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.2523-2528
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• 2012

Green phosphors $(Zn_{1-a-b}M_aM^{\prime}_b)_xGa_yS_{x+3y/2}:Eu^{2+}$ (M, M' = alkali earth ions) with x = 2 and y = 2-5 were prepared, starting from ZnO, MgO, $SrCO_3$, $Ga_2O_3$, $Eu_2O_3$, and S with a flux $NH_4F$ using a conventional solidstate reaction. A phosphor with the composition of $(Zn_{0.6}Sr_{0.3}Mg_{0.1})_2Ga_2S_5:Eu^{2+}$ produced the strongest luminescence at a 460-nm excitation. The observed XRD patterns indicated that the optimized phosphor consisted of two components: zinc thiogallate and zinc sulfide. The characteristic green luminescence of the $ZnS:Eu^{2+}$ component on excitation at 460 nm was attributed to the donor-acceptor ($D_{ZnGa_2S_4}-A_{ZnS}$) recombination in the hybrid boundary. The optimized green phosphor converted 17.9% of the absorbed blue light into luminescence. For the fabrication of light-emitting diode (LED), the optimized phosphor was coated with MgO using magnesium nitrate to overcome their weakness against moisture. The MgO-coated green phosphor was fabricated with a blue GaN LED, and the chromaticity index of the phosphor-cast LED (pc-LED) was investigated as a function of the wt % of the optimized phosphor. White LEDs were fabricated by pasting the optimized green (G) and the red (R) phosphors, and the commercial yellow (Y) phosphor on the blue chips. The three-band pc-WLED resulted in improved color rendering index (CRI) and corrected color temperature (CCT), compared with those of the two-band pc-WLED.