Solid-state combinatorial screening of (Sr,Ca,Ba, Mg)₂Si₅N₈:Eu(2+) phosphors.

We employed a solid-state combinatorial chemistry technique to screen 4 ternary phosphor systems: (Sr,Ca,Ba)(2)Si(5)N(8):Eu(2+), (Sr,Ca,Mg)(2)Si(5)N(8):Eu(2+), (Sr,Mg,Ba)(2)Si(5)N(8):Eu(2+), and (Ca,Ba,Mg)(2)Si(5)N(8):Eu(2+). The current pure nitride-based system did not allow for the use of conventional liquid solution-based high-throughput experimentation, so that a specially designed solid-state high-throughput powder-dispensing synthesis technique was employed. As a result, four well-defined ternary combinatorial libraries were developed in terms of photoluminescent (PL) intensity and color chromaticity with no skipped compositions, which provided a quantitative relationship between PL properties and the composition of AE(2)Si(5)N(8):Eu(2+) (AE = alkaline earth elements) phosphors.