A novel monoclinic phase of impurity-doped CaGa2S4 as a phosphor with high emission intensity

Abstract

In the solid-state synthesis of impurity-doped CaGa2S4, calcium tetrathiodigallate(III), a novel phosphor material (denominated as the X-phase), with monoclinic symmetry in the space group P21/a, has been discovered. Its emission intensity is higher than that of the known orthorhombic polymorph of CaGa2S4 crystallizing in the space group Fddd. The asymmetric unit of the monoclinic phase consists of two Ca, four Ga and eight S sites. Each of the Ca and Ga atoms is surrounded by seven and four sulfide ions, respectively, thereby sharing each of the sulfur sites with the nearest neighbours. In contrast, the corresponding sites in the orthorhombic phase are surrounded by eight and four S atoms, respectively. The photoluminescence peaks from Mn2+ and Ce3+ in the doped X-phase, both of which are supposed to replace Ca2+ ions, have been observed to shift towards the high energy side in comparison with those in the orthorhombic phase. This suggests that the crystal field around the Mn2+ and Ce3+ ions in the X-phase is weaker than that in the orthorhombic phase.