Mechanism for strong yellow emission of Y3Al5O12:Ce3+ phosphor under electron irradiation for the application to field emission backlight units

Abstract

This letter reports a strong yellow emission of Y3Al5O12:Ce3+ (YAG:Ce) mixed with ZnS:Ag,Cl under electron excitation. The penetration depths of electron of 1keV and photon of 2.7eV in YAG:Ce were estimated to be approximately 1450Å and 4.65mm, respectively. Deeper penetration of blue light from ZnS:Ag,Cl helps to excite a larger number of Ce3+ in a mixture (ZnS:Ag,Cl+YAG:Ce), and YAG:Ce showed strong yellow emission via both cathodoluminescence and photoluminescence. The mixture showed the brightness of 120.5% compared to R,G,B phosphor mixture. This mixture of two phosphors was applied to a carbon nanotube field emission backlight unit.