In this work, submicro-sized Y 3 Al 5 O 12 :Ce 3+ particles were synthesized via a coprecipitation method. When mechanical stimuli are applied, the submicro-sized Y 3 Al 5 O 12 :Ce 3+ can exhibit intense greenish-yellow mechanoluminescence. Different from the bulk Y 3 Al 5 O 12 :Ce 3+ synthesized by conventional solid-state method, the mechanoluminescence of the submicro-sized Y 3 Al 5 O 12 :Ce 3+ exhibits a trap-dependent behavior. The distinct spectral characteristics between photoluminescence and mechanoluminescence further suggest that distorted Ce 3+ sites could be generated under mechanical stimuli, and therefore the mechanoluminescent mechanisms of the submicro-sized Y 3 Al 5 O 12 :Ce 3+ are revealed.
Up-to-date laser-driven lightings confront a challenge of simultaneously achieving good photometric and chromatic performances. Herein, the coupling of “patterned package design” and “phosphor wheel” was proposed and demonstrated effectively to deal with this tough issue, based on a new architecture of CaAlSiN 3 :Eu 2+ (CASN:Eu) glass ceramic film (GCF) on Y 3 Al 5 O 12 :Ce 3+ (YAG:Ce) GC plate. The fabricated composite has no interface between the two functional layers and retains the admirable luminescent features from CASN:Eu and YAG:Ce for the microstructural integrity during co-sintering. The studies on laser-microcrystalline interactions reveal that the luminescence saturation is almost determined by thermal quenching for YAG:Ce, but is ascribed to thermal/intensity quenching which are equally crucial for CASN:Eu. Benefiting from the elaborate architecture design, good color chromaticity tunability was obtained, and severe photon reabsorption was reduced. Moreover, accompanied with the rotation induced increase of thermal convection to air and pulse-like excitation, the constructed lighting engine under blue laser driven shows bright white light with luminous flux (LF) higher than 1000 lm, adjustable chromaticity from cool to warm, and improved color rendering index (CRI) approaching to 70.