Cr doped ZnAl2O4 spinel samples were prepared by the traditional solid state reaction and co-precipitation synthetic route, and the results suggest that the co-precipitation method has some superiority in contrast to the solid state reaction method. XRD, FT-IR, and XPS spectra confirmed that the well-crystallized spinel cubic phase of ZnAl2O4: Cr3+ samples were successfully formed. The morphology of the samples was investigated by FE-SEM and FE-TEM, and the results show that the samples by the co-precipitation route can generate a smaller size of particles compared to the solid state reaction. Photoluminescence excitation spectra monitored at 686 nm are comprised of two broad excitation bands near 530 nm and 395 nm, and the emission spectra show emissions ranging from 640 to 780 nm, due to the 2E?→?4A2 spin-forbidden transition of Cr3+ ions in spinel lattices. The optimized concentration monitored at 686 nm is 1%, while at 693 nm is 3.5%. Compared with the samples by solid state reaction method, the samples by co-precipitation method show preferable luminescent properties, such as the higher photoluminescence intensity and higher quantum efficiency. Several phosphor-converted LEDs were to investigate the applicability of the prepared samples. The results confirm that the phosphor has potential applications in plant growth and supplementing the red region in white-LEDs and the phosphors prepared by co-precipitation are more suitable to be used in phosphor-converted LED devices due to their preferable luminescent properties.
