The ideal product of rare-earth-doped
phosphors should have uniform
particle size distribution and homogeneous doping ions in each particle,
and therefore, intensified micromixing at mesoscale is highly required.
In this article, inspired by the concept of “mesoscience”,
we demonstrate the tuning of Eu3+ doping in GdBO3 microparticles at mesoscale by a high-gravity-assisted reactive
precipitation-coupled calcination process. The high-gravity environment
and tiny droplets generated by the high-gravity rotating packed bed
(RPB) reactor lead to significant intensification of mass transfer
and micromixing, which are beneficial for the homogeneous doping of
Eu3+ in the host material during reactive precipitation
in liquid solution. Under excitation at 395 nm, the emission spectra
of the Eu3+-doped phosphors exhibit a narrow-band red emission
centered at 625 nm and the highest intensity was observed at x = 0.2. The RPB products show higher intensity than that
of the control group even when the reaction time was shortened to
1/6. After calculation, the quenching in the sample most likely results
from dipole–dipole interactions. The chromaticity coordinates
for the RPB sample was measured as (0.598, 0.341) with a quantum yield
of up to 78.11%, and the phosphors exhibit good thermal stability
at 423 K. The phosphors were used as the luminescent materials for
light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and the devices showed good performance.
Our preliminary study illustrated that high-gravity-assisted approaches
are promising for tuning the doping of rare-earth ions in microparticles
at mesoscale toward efficient production of phosphors for LEDs.
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