Enhancing emission intensity and thermal stability by charge compensation in Sr2Mg3P4O15:Eu3+

Charge compensation was the effective methods to enhance the luminescence properties of phosphors. In this paper, novel single‐phased orange light emitting Sr₂Mg₃P₄O₁₅:Eu³⁺ phosphors were prepared by solid state method. The phase purity and luminous characteristics were examined in detail. Meanwhile, three kinds of charge compensation methods (co‐doping the alkali metal R⁺ (R⁺ = Li, Na, and K), substituting Si⁴⁺ for P⁵⁺ and self‐compensation) were employed to solve the charge imbalance problem between Sr²⁺ and Eu³⁺. The results showed that emission intensity of Eu³⁺ was improved by 1.43 (Li⁺), 1.58 (Na⁺), 1.53 (K⁺), 1.61 (Si⁴⁺), and 1.30 (self) times than that of Sr_1.6Mg₃P₄O₁₅:0.40Eu³⁺, respectively, and there was no change in the emitting color simultaneously. Furthermore, as the temperature reached at 423 K, the emission intensity increased from 41.67% of Sr_1.6Mg₃P₄O₁₅:0.40Eu³⁺ to 55.69% (Li⁺), 61.62% (Na⁺), 58.98% (K⁺), 71.15% (Si⁴⁺), and 80.59% (self) of that at room temperature. The reasons of those phenomena were the reduction in ion vacancies caused by charge imbalance through the charge compensation process. The specific mechanisms were elaborated in detail. Overall, this research validated that the charge compensation strategies could be severed as the key method to improve the luminescence properties, especially the thermal stability of phosphor.