Luminescence in Sulfides: A Rich History and a Bright Future

Sulfide-based luminescent materials have attracted a lot of attention for a wide range of photo-, cathodo- and electroluminescent applications. Upon doping with Ce3+ and Eu2+, the luminescence can be varied over the entire visible region by appropriately choosing the composition of the sulfide host. Main application areas are flat panel displays based on thin film electroluminescence, field emission displays and ZnS-based powder electroluminescence for backlights. For these applications, special attention is given to BaAl2S4:Eu, ZnS:Mn and ZnS:Cu. Recently, sulfide materials have regained interest due to their ability (in contrast to oxide materials) to provide a broad band, Eu2+-based red emission for use as a color conversion material in white-light emitting diodes (LEDs). The potential application of rare-earth doped binary alkaline-earth sulfides, like CaS and SrS, thiogallates, thioaluminates and thiosilicates as conversion phosphors is discussed. Finally, this review concludes with the size-dependent luminescence in intrinsic colloidal quantum dots like PbS and CdS, and with the luminescence in doped nanoparticles.