Atomic site engineering in garnet phosphors taming thermal quenching for high-power visible and NIR luminescence
- 1chool of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, New Energy and New Materials Research Center, Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China
Abstract
Rare-earth (RE) and transition metal-doped garnet phosphors are the dominant commercial luminescent materials for high-power white light-emitting diodes (wLEDs), and emerging near-infrared (NIR) phosphors for spectroscopy, bioimaging and plant lighting. A long-standing bottleneck for high-power operation is thermal quenching: commercial YAG:Ce3+ typically loses >20% of its room-temperature emission intensity at 150 °C, the standard operating temperature of 1 A-driven pc-LEDs, leading to efficiency roll-off, color shift and shortened device lifetime. Unlike passive strategies such as surface coating or glass encapsulation, site engineering modulates the local coordination environment of luminescent centers at the atomic scale, providing an intrinsic route to improve thermal stability without sacrificing quantum efficiency. This mini review summarizes the structure-property relationship between crystallographic site properties and thermal quenching behavior, critically evaluates three mainstream site engineering approaches (isovalent substitution, aliovalent charge-compensated co-doping, multi-site occupancy design) with representative material systems covering both RE (Ce3+, Eu3+) and transition metal (Cr3+, Mn2+/Mn4+) activators, and highlights unresolved research gaps.
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BibTeX
@article{feng2026atomic,
title = {{Atomic site engineering in garnet phosphors taming thermal quenching for high-power visible and NIR luminescence}},
author = {Jiajun Feng and Peixuan Chen and Yuyuan Chen and Keyi Fang and Shiting Chen and Xiaofeng Li and Yanjing Wu and Liyuan Huang and Xiang Li},
journal = {Frontiers in Chemistry},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fchem.2026.1986069},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2026.1986069},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Atomic site engineering in garnet phosphors taming thermal quenching for high-power visible and NIR luminescence
AU - Jiajun Feng
AU - Peixuan Chen
AU - Yuyuan Chen
AU - Keyi Fang
AU - Shiting Chen
AU - Xiaofeng Li
AU - Yanjing Wu
AU - Liyuan Huang
AU - Xiang Li
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
JO - Frontiers in Chemistry
DO - 10.3389/fchem.2026.1986069
UR - https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2026.1986069
AB - Rare-earth (RE) and transition metal-doped garnet phosphors are the dominant commercial luminescent materials for high-power white light-emitting diodes (wLEDs), and emerging near-infrared (NIR) phosphors for spectroscopy, bioimaging and plant lighting. A long-standing bottleneck for high-power operation is thermal quenching: commercial YAG:Ce3+ typically loses >20% of its room-temperature emission intensity at 150 °C, the standard operating temperature of 1 A-driven pc-LEDs, leading to efficiency roll-off, color shift and shortened device lifetime. Unlike passive strategies such as surface coating or glass encapsulation, site engineering modulates the local coordination environment of luminescent centers at the atomic scale, providing an intrinsic route to improve thermal stability without sacrificing quantum efficiency. This mini review summarizes the structure-property relationship between crystallographic site properties and thermal quenching behavior, critically evaluates three mainstream site engineering approaches (isovalent substitution, aliovalent charge-compensated co-doping, multi-site occupancy design) with representative material systems covering both RE (Ce3+, Eu3+) and transition metal (Cr3+, Mn2+/Mn4+) activators, and highlights unresolved research gaps.
SN - 2296-2646
ER -