Achievement

IGERT Fellow Nathan George Reports: I have been investigating phosphor materials for solid state white lighting. I have specifically been studying the garnet phosphor material Y3Al5O12:Ce, in order to determine the origin of its high efficiency and its impressive optical properties at elevated temperatures. I have used the synchrotron x-ray and neutron scattering, and high magnetic field magnetic resonance (NMR). NMR studies suggest that the Ce is squeezed into place, causing a large crystal field splitting, which corresponds to the yellow emission color observed in fluorimtery studies. The results are important to the development of new phosphor materials that efficiently convert the blue light from an (In,Ga)N solid state light source to a full spectrum white light in an efficient manner.