Synthesis and Characterization of the CaTiO:Eu Red Phosphor by an Optimized Microwave-Assisted Sintering Process.

The synthesis process has a significant influence on the properties of CaTiO:Eu phosphors; thus, an optimized process will lead to a better performance of the CaTiO:Eu phosphors. In this work, the feasibility of synthesizing the CaTiO:Eu phosphor with a good luminescent performance by combining the chemical co-precipitation method and microwave-assisted sintering was studied. The precursor of CaTiO:Eu phosphors were prepared by the chemical co-precipitation method. To find an optimized process, we applied both of the traditional (furnace) sintering and the microwave-assisted sintering to synthesize the CaTiO:Eu phosphors. We found out that a sintering power of 528 W for 50 min (temperature around 950 °C) by a microwave oven resulted in similar emission intensity results compared to traditional furnace sintering at 900 °C for 2.5 h. The synthesized CaTiO:Eu phosphors has an emission peak at 617 nm (D→F), which corresponds to the red light band. This new synthesized method is an energy efficient, time saving, and environmentally friendly means for the preparation of CaTiO:Eu red phosphor with good luminescent performance.