Progress of surface-modified inorganic phosphors for performance improvement: from methods to applications

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Optoelectronics
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Surface modification offers superior interface control and functional scalability for materials.
• It is crucial for optimizing inorganic phosphors, enhancing luminous efficacy, thermal stability, and compatibility.
• Applications span light-emitting diodes, optical sensing, anti-counterfeiting, and biomedical imaging.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review recent advances in surface modification of inorganic, organic, and organic-inorganic phosphor materials.
• To comprehensively summarize design principles, structure variations, luminescence performance, mechanisms, and applications.
• To propose the relationship between interface engineering and luminescence optimization.

Main Methods:

• Review of recent literature on surface modification techniques for phosphors.
• Analysis of inorganic, organic, and hybrid coating strategies.
• Investigation of structure-performance relationships and underlying luminescence mechanisms.

Main Results:

• Surface modification significantly improves phosphor properties like luminous efficacy and stability.
• Interface engineering is key to optimizing luminescence performance.
• New perspectives for designing multifunctional phosphors and guidelines for interface engineering are provided.

Conclusions:

• Surface modification is vital for advancing phosphor materials in diverse applications.
• A deeper understanding of surface effects is needed for further development.
• This review offers theoretical guidance for manipulating functional materials via interface engineering.