Understanding Thermal Quenching of Photoluminescence in Oxynitride Phosphors from First Principles

Understanding the physical mechanisms behind thermal effects in phosphors is crucial for white light-emitting device (WLEDs) applications, as thermal quenching of their photoluminescence might render them useless. We analyze from first-principles, before and after absorption/emission of light, two chemically close Eu-doped Ba3Si6O12N2 and Ba3Si6O9N4 crystals for WLEDs. The first one has an almost constant emission intensity with increasing temperature whereas the other one does not. Our results, in which the Eu-5d levels are obtained inside the band gap thanks to the removal of an electron from the 4f7 shell, and the atomic neighborhood properly relaxed in the excited state, attributes the above-mentioned experimental difference to an autoionization model of the thermal quenching, based on the energy difference between Eu5d and the conduction band minimum. Our depleted-shifted 4f method can identify luminescent centers and therefore allows for effective crystal site engineering of luminescent centers in phosphors from first principle