Luminescent properties of novel red-emitting phosphor: Gd2O2CN2:Eu3+

Eu 3+ -doped Gd2O2CN2 was firstly synthesized by a classical solid-state reaction of Li2CO3, Eu2O3 and GdF3 under NH3 gas flow in the presence of graphite at low firing temperature. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis indicated that Gd2O2CN2: Eu 3+ crystallizes in a trigonal-type structure with space group P-3m1. Gd2O2CN2: Eu 3+ shows a sharp red emission band peaking at 626 nm under excitation at 300 nm at room temperature. PL spectra indicates that Eu 3+ doped Gd2O2CN2 samples emit the typical emission peaks at 614 nm and 626 nm originated from the hypersensitive electric dipole transition ( 5 D0→ 7 F2) of Eu 3+ ions. The optimized doping concentration of Eu 3+ ions was found to be 7.5 at.%, and the critical transfer distance was calculated to be 10.907 Å.