Synthesis and cathodoluminescent properties of Y ₂SiO ₅:Tb ³⁺ phosphors prepared from uniform precursor

The luminescent properties of phosphors are sensitive to the size of phosphor particles. The commercial Y ₂SiO ₅:Tb ³⁺ phosphors usually show relatively larger particle size (510 μm) due to the irregular morphology of rare earth oxide precursor and thus degrade the luminescent properties. In this paper, we report the Y ₂SiO ₅:Tb ³⁺ phosphors synthesized from the uniform Tb-doped Y ₂O ₃ precursor by a homogeneous precipitation method. Compared with the commercial phosphors, the obtained Y ₂SiO ₅:Tb ³⁺ phosphors manifest the uniform morphology with much smaller particles distributing from 0.8 μm to 1.9 μm. Consequently, the cathodoluminescent intensity under low excitation voltage (15 kV) was increased, demonstrating a strong green emission with a dominant wavelength of 545 nm. Our results indicate an effective way to develop the high-quality phosphors for field emission display.