Effect of the Ce3+ concentration on laser-sintered YAG ceramics for white LEDs applications

This paper describes the laser sintering and luminescence properties of Y3Al5O12 (YAG) phosphors doped with different concentrations of CO3+ and synthesized using the polymeric precursor method. The ceramics were sintered by a new laser sintering technique in which a CO2 laser is employed as the heating source. The resultant ceramics exhibited a homogeneous microstructure with narrow grain size distribution and high relative density. The introduction of CO3+ ions led to luminescence quenching at a concentration above 0.5 mol% and a redshift of the emission spectrum band with increasing cerium concentration. The excitation spectrum showed two characteristic bands centered at 340 nm and 460 nm and a relative change in their intensity by change the CO3+ concentration. The presence of a single valence (Ce3+) of cerium was determined by X-ray absorption near edge structure measurements.