Site-Selective Occupancy Control of Cr Ions toward Ultrabroad-Band Infrared Luminescence with a Spectral Width up to 419 nm.

Infrared-emitting phosphor-converted light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are desirable light sources for a very wide range of applications such as spectroscopy analysis, nondestructive monitoring, covert information identification, and night-vision surveillance. The most important aspect of infrared emitters for spectroscopy is to cover the widest possible wavelength range of emitted light. However, developing ultrabroad-band infrared emitters based on converter technology is still a challenging task due to the lack of suitable phosphor materials that emit in a wide wavelength range upon excitation from blue-emitting chips. Herein, this work demonstrates Cr-activated MgSiO infrared phosphors with a super wide infrared spectral range of 600 to 1400 nm and high internal quantum yield up to 80.4% upon 460 nm excitation. Site-selective occupancy of Cr emitters in two different Mg sites in the MgSiO lattice results in two distinct broad emission bands peaking at 760 and 970 nm, both of which contribute to the ultrabroad-band infrared luminescence with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 419 nm. This is by far the broadest infrared emission to the best of our knowledge. On this basis, an ultrabroad-band infrared LED prototype has been fabricated by the combination of the MgSiO:Cr phosphor with a blue LED chip, which shows great potential for imaging and sensing applications. This work demonstrates that site-selective occupancy control of Cr ions is an effective strategy for developing ultrabroad-band Cr-doped phosphors.