Site occupancies, photoluminescence, and temperature sensing properties of a K7ZnSc2B15O30:Ce3+, Tb3+ phosphor

New blue color-emitting K7ZnSc2B15O30:Ce3+, Tb3+ luminescence materials were successfully prepared by a solid-phase method, and their spectroscopic properties and temperature sensing performance were studied. Under the irradiation of near-ultraviolet light, the Ce3+-doped K7ZnSc2B15O30 sample exhibited a very broadband blue light-emitting characteristic region from 450 to 650 nm attributing to the multiple sites occupancies of Ce3+, which was analyzed by the luminescence spectra and the ligand polarization theory. Besides, the effect of Tb3+ on the luminescence thermal stability and the emission color was studied. The results demonstrated that the thermal quenching behavior of the co-doped sample was similar to that of Ce3+-doped sample, which was inferior to the thermal stability of K7ZnSc2B15O30:Tb3+. Furthermore, with the increasing of Tb3+, the emitting color can be tuned from dark blue to light blue. According to the different thermal quenching behavior of Ce3+ and Tb3+ in K7ZnSc2B15O30, the temperature sensing performance was evaluated. Under the condition of 503 K, the relative sensitivity of KZSBO:2%Ce3+, 2.5%Tb3+ was 1.75% K−1.