| Abstract |
Terbium-doped one-dimensional triple microcavities have been prepared by sol-gel processing. The photoluminescence (PL) of Tb3+ ions outside a microcavity structure, when excited by blue laser light at 488 nm, consisted of three distinct peaks at 542, 587 and 619 nm. When embedded in the microcavities, the three Tb3+ PL peaks were enhanced, balanced and broadened by the photonic crystal structure and combined into a continuous broad band. An analysis in the CIE colour space showed that white light can be obtained by mixing the modified Tb3+ PL with the blue exciting light, while this is impossible with the original PL profile. This novel technique may improve white light generation by enhancing and modifying the spontaneous emission of current phosphors. It may also lead to the development of new rare-earth phosphor materials based on 4f-4f transitions, able to generate white light more efficiently, via simpler and cheaper alternatives to the current phosphor compositions. A novel configuration to combine this kind of structure with a white light-emitting-diode (LED) is also proposed. |
