Hydrolysis kinetic study of CaAlSiN₃:Eu²⁺ red phosphor with both water immersion test and first-principles calculation

Abstract

At present, most high-power white Light-emitting diode and laser diode (LED&LD) package is usually constructed by a blue LED&LD chip with a Cerium doped Yttrium Aluminum Garnet (YAG:Ce³⁺) yellow phosphor, but its color rendering performance is severely challenged due to the lack of red light emission spectrum. The CaAlSiN₃:Eu²⁺ red phosphor can effectively improve the color quality of traditional yellow phosphor converted white LED&LDs(pc-wLED&LDs), however, it is often susceptible to degradation under high temperature and high humidity environments, which will directly affect the color quality of pc-wLED&LDs. In this study, a series of water immersion tests on CaAlSiN₃:Eu²⁺ red phosphor are used to quantitatively study its hydrolysis reaction kinetics. Then, the degradations of its photoluminescence and photothermal performances are evaluated by characterizing the crystal structure, micromorphology and chemical element composition. Finally, an atomic level hydrolysis reaction mechanism of CaAlSiN₃:Eu²⁺ red phosphor is investigated by using the first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculation. The results show that: (1) By modelling the in-situ monitored electrical conductivity of CaAlSiN₃:Eu²⁺ red phosphor water solution with a first-order reaction function, the calculated hydrolysis reaction rate satisfies the Arrhenius relationship and the reaction activation energy is estimated as 49.19 kJ/mol; (2) The increased self-heating effect of CaAlSiN₃:Eu²⁺ red phosphor after water immersion test attribute to its drastic drop of light emission efficiency; (3) The hydrolysis reaction mechanism of CaAlSiN₃:Eu²⁺ red phosphor is confirmed, which sequentially results in the dissolution of Ca²⁺ and OH⁻, the crash of host lattice and the accumulation of reaction residues.