Luminescent Ag⁺ exchanged SOD zeolites with their potential applications in white LEDs

Ag+ exchanged zeolites (Ag-zeolites) combining the advantages of high stability of microporous zeolites with the unique optical properties of silver clusters are attractive as promising functional materials. In this work, we systematically studied the optical properties of Ag+ exchanged SOD zeolites, obtaining tuned emission from yellow to blue and for the first time acquired white-emitting Ag-zeolite phosphors at a mild temperature (<300 °C). This tunable emission color was found to be caused by lattice shrinkage and lattice expansion of the framework in SOD zeolites. The obtained white emitting phosphors show Commission Internationale de I'Eclairage (CIE) chromaticity coordinates of (0.33, 0.34) under 395 nm excitation. In addition, we fabricated warm white LEDs with these white emitting phosphors, which show CIE coordinates of (0.37, 0.34), with a lower correlated color temperature (CCT) of 4329 K and a higher color rendering index (CRI) of 91.