Luminescent Materials and Phosphor Technologies

Luminescent materials encompass a broad class of compounds that emit light following electronic excitation. Central to this field are phosphors, inorganic or organic hosts doped with luminescent centres—commonly rare-earth or transition-metal ions—that convert absorbed energy into photons across the ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared regions. Advances in host-lattice design, activator selection and defect engineering have enabled fine tuning of spectral profiles, emission lifetimes and thermal stability. Persistent luminescent phosphors exploit trap levels to extend afterglow duration, offering applications in safety signage, bioimaging and night-vision. Mechanoluminescent materials generate light under mechanical stress, presenting opportunities in self-powered sensing and interactive displays. Recent developments leverage high-throughput computation, precision synthesis and nanostructuring to achieve narrower emission bands, higher quantum yields and bespoke emission colours. These innovations underpin next-generation solid-state lighting, high-resolution displays, optical communications and biomedical diagnostics, underscoring the global importance of phosphor technologies in energy-efficient illumination and advanced photonic systems.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Researchers have reported an unprecedented near-infrared phosphor based on a divalent europium-doped silicate host. The material exhibits a broad emission band centred at 740 nm with a full width at half maximum of approximately 160 nm when excited by blue light. Structural analysis reveals selective occupation of low-coordination sites by Eu²⁺, which tunes the crystal-field environment to enable efficient 4f–5d transitions. Phosphor-converted light-emitting diodes incorporating this compound demonstrate strong non-visible emission and suggest a general design principle for rare-earth-activated inorganic solids that could guide future exploration of narrow-band near-infrared emitters for photonic and biomedical devices.

Luminescent Materials and Phosphor Technologies publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in luminescent materials and phosphor technologies across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Activator: An ion, typically a rare-earth or transition-metal species, introduced into a host lattice to generate luminescence upon excitation.

Persistent luminescence: Continued light emission after removal of the excitation source, enabled by charge carriers trapped at defect sites.

Mechanoluminescence: Light emission triggered by mechanical action such as pressure, friction or deformation.

Quantum efficiency: The ratio of emitted photons to absorbed photons, indicating luminescent performance.

Full width at half maximum (FWHM): The spectral bandwidth measured at half of the peak emission intensity, reflecting colour purity.

References

1. Divalent europium-doped near-infrared-emitting phosphor for light-emitting diodes. Nature Communications (2019).
2. Bioimaging and prospects of night pearls‐based persistence phosphors in cancer diagnostics. Exploration (2024).
3. An ultra thin, bright, and sensitive interactive tactile display based on organic mechanoluminescence for dual‐mode handwriting identification. InfoMat (2024).
4. Strategies to approach high performance in Cr3+-doped phosphors for high-power NIR-LED light sources. Light: Science & Applications (2020).