Alkoxy sol-gel derived Y3-xAl5O12:Tbx thin films as efficient cathodoluminescent phosphors

Thin-film Y3-xAl5O12:Tb-x(3+) (YAG:Tb) phosphor derived from a sol-gel chemistry is analyzed by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, photoluminescence (PL) and cathodoluminescence (CL). The metal alkoxides organic precursors were chosen as the starting materials to form the sol-gel. This liquid sol-gel was spin coated on sapphire and silicon substrates to form the uniform thin films, then crystallized by annealing. The PL intensity of the crystallized film at 545 nm green emission was 15 times higher than that of the as-coated noncrystalline film. CL measurements show that luminance and efficiency are comparable to the films deposited by other techniques. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.