In the field of solid-state luminescence, Cu2+ has long been widely acknowledged for its capacity to emit infrared light. However, the occurrence of visible emission from Cu2+ ions had been infrequently observed and reported. In this study, we made an intriguing discovery by examining the behavior of Cu2+ within an irregular coordination environment of Ba in BaGa2O4. When excited by UV light, Cu2+ unexpectedly gave a vibrant yellow–red emission, covering a wavelength range spanning from 500 to 750 nm. More noteworthy, by simply manipulating the excitation wavelength or adjusting the temperature, the peak wavelength of the emission could be effectively tuned from approximately 600 to 660 nm, which could be attributed to the luminescence nature of the charge transfer (CT) between O2− and Cu2+. Moreover, the phosphor material displayed a remarkable persistent luminescence (PerL) lasting up to 12 h after UV light excitation. Through thermoluminescence (TL) measurements and first-principle calculations, we found that the intrinsic defects, such as vacancies of oxygen and gallium (VO and VGa″), played important roles for the PerL phenomena. These findings highlighted the exceptional tunability and PerL properties of BaGa2O4:Cu2+. Our study provided a new potential guideline for the design of Cu2+-activated phosphors in visible region, and opened up new avenues for the research in related functional luminescence materials.@en

How the 3d transition metal (TM) ions induce defect levels in wide band gap compounds and how these defect levels evolve from compound to compound is very important in understanding and predicting the luminescent properties of TM activated phosphors. This issue is discussed by studying the ground state 3dn level locations of the TM impurity ions (Sc-Zn) incorporated at the octahedral sites of many oxides. These ground state 3dn level locations are obtained by collecting the CT bands from the literature of the past 50 years and also by first-principles calculations. By taking the vacuum level as the reference, we scaled all the locations of the TM ion in 3+ and 2+ states and constructed a zig-zag-curve scheme in α-Al2O3 through connecting the 3dn ground state energies of Sc to Zn. The scheme can be extended to other aluminates easily and so offers a first estimate on where TM levels are located in compounds without complicated theoretical calculations. The estimate can be improved to a higher accuracy if the position of the valence band is known. Our work provides new insights for understanding the luminescent behavior of 3d-TM doped phosphors and may aid in developing 3d ion doped functional materials further.@en