Description:
Reference #: 00731
The University of South Carolina is offering licensing opportunities for this technology.
Potential Applications:
Luminescence, or the absorption of energy with subsequent emission of light in the visible part of the light spectrum, is the basis of a broad range of applications such as cathode ray tubes, projection televisions, fluorescent tubes and lighting and x-ray and ionizing radiation detectors for medical and technical applications. The new families of phosphors introduced by the present invention can be used to make white-light emitting devices by exposing an appropriate mixture of a red, green and blue phosphor to light from a light emitting device (LED) in the UV range of the spectrum (UV-LED).
Advantages and Benefits:
Matching the luminescent efficiencies and absorption peaks of these phosphors is very important to obtain white-light emitting diodes used, for instance, in the backlight of liquid crystal displays, automobile lights and solid state lights, due to a high efficiency and lower energy consumption, good reliability and long lifetime.
Invention Description:
The present invention introduces a novel family of inorganic luminescent materials. Investigations in the A3BO4F (A=Ca, Sr, Ba ; B=Al, Ga, In) family of luminescent materials have resulted in a promising new host material exhibiting self-activated emission near 600nm. It has been shown that a variety of materials with the general formulae Sr3-xBaxAl1-cIncO4-eF1-d can be used as new host lattices for near-UV GaN-based LEDs. They show self-activating luminescence due to broad charge-transfer absorption bands in the near UV. This system reveals a tunability of the excitation bands due to the variety of BO4 tetrahedra that can be accommodated in this structure type. This structure type also allows for fine tuning of CIE values by controlling the defect chemistry in the ABO43- and A2F3+ layers respectively.