A novel yellow emitting phosphor Dy3+, Bi3+ co-doped YVO4 potentially for white light emitting diodes

Novel Y1 x yVO4:xDy3+,yBi3+(0.01 ≤ x ≤ 0.05,0 ≤ y ≤ 0.20) phosphors for light emitting diode(LED) were successfully synthesised by solid-state reaction.The calculation results of electronic structure show that YVO4 has a direct band gap with 3 eV at G.The top of the valence band is dominated by O 2p state and the bottom of the conduction band is mainly composed of O 2p and V 3d states.An efficient yellow emission under near-ultraviolet(365 nm) excitation is observed.Compared with the pure YVO4:Dy3+ samples,the Dy3+,Bi3+ co-doped samples show a more intensive emission peak(at 574 nm) and a new broad emission band(450-770 nm),due to the 4F9/2 6H13/2 transition of Dy3+ and the emission of the VO3 4 Bi3+ complex respectively.The optimum chromaticity index of Y1 x yVO4:xDy3+,yBi3+(0.01 ≤ x ≤ 0.05,0 ≤ y ≤ 0.20) is(0.447,0.497),which indicates that YVO4:Dy3+,Bi3+ has higher colour saturation than the commercial phosphor YAG:Ce3+.The effects of concentration of Dy3+,Bi3+,electric states and the photoluminescence properties are discussed in details.