LAUSR

The phosphors free of active dopants have been attracted much attention due to their interesting optical properties and potentials for construction of rare-earth free functional materials. In this letter, we report the construction of phosphor free of active dopants via nanocrystallization of glass. In a typical example, a single-phase Zn2GeO4 phosphor is fabricated via controllable crystallization of the germinate glass. Intense green luminescence with the central wavelength at 523 nm can be realized in nanostructured glass and it is estimated to be ∼150 times higher than that of the as-made glass. The physical mechanism is associated with the formation of Zn related interstitial defects during the disorder-order phase transformation in glass. The progress in this work indicates that the avenue of glass crystallization provides an effective strategy for the development of novel active photonic materials free of active dopants.