Rare-Earth Free Phosphors with Ultra-Broad Band Emission Application for High Color Rendering Index Lighting Source.

Rare-earth containing phosphors have been widely applied in lighting and display fields in the past century. Lower cost rareearth free phosphors with high performance are highly desired driven by the exhaustion of rare earth resources and the requirement of cheaper production. Herein, Cu+ ions doped tetracalcium phosphate (TTCP) yellow emitting phosphors with quantum yield of 21% are exploited. Particularly, ultra-broad band emission with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) about 200 nm throughout almost entire visible light region is observed for TTCP: Cu+ phosphors, evidencing its promising application in high color rendering index (CRI) lighting source. White light emission with CRI value about 94.3 is generated by combining this TTCP: Cu+ phosphor with commercial BaMgAl10O17: Eu2+ blue phosphor, exhibiting superiority over the traditional trichromatic phosphors. Therefore, we predict great potential application for this cheaper rare-earth free TTCP: Cu+ phosphor in high CRI lighting sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]