Photostable and efficient red-emitters based on zeolite L crystals

Abstract

Photostable and efficient red-emitting host–guest materials have been obtained employing a ship in a bottle procedure by loading 2-thenoyltrifluoroacetone (tta) or tta and 1,10-phenthroline (phen) from gas phase into the channels of Eu³⁺-ZL crystals that exhibit disc-shaped morphology followed by treatment with ammonia gas. The resulting Eu³⁺(tta)_x-ZL and Eu³⁺(tta)_x(phen)_y-ZL host–guest materials were characterized with XRD, SEM, absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy. Two key findings have been made in this work: (1) The emission intensity and the lifetime of Eu³⁺ ions of the host–guest materials can be significantly increased by treatment with ammonia gas, and (2) the encapsulated europium(III) complexes in ZL crystals show remarkably increased photostability.