Long-ultraviolet-excited white-light emission in rare-earth-activated yttrium-oxyorthosilicate

White-fight emission was achieved by activating yttrium oxyorthosilicate with two rare-earth elements, (Y1-m-nCemTbn)(2)SiO5 center dot Ce3+ strongly absorbs at lambda(ex)=358 nm and produces a broad, mainly blue emission with a tail that extends out to 600 nm (orange), and transfers energy efficiently to Tb3+, which produces strong green-line emissions at 550 nm and some red emission around 650 nm. At lambda(ex)=358 nm, chromaticity coordinates of the optimally activated (Y0.9625Ce0.0075Tb0.03)(2)SiO5 were found to be x = 0.266, y = 0.365 with a color temperature 8512 K. Upon mixing in another red-emitting phosphor, (Y0.995Bi0.005Eu0.04)(2)O-3, the chromaticity and color rendering index values were improved.