Superior thermal quenching and degradation of phosphors are required for long lifetime lighting devices, such as light-emitting diodes, which can be realized through composition modification. Here, Al-N bonds in AlON: Eu²⁺ phosphors are substituted by higher bond order of Si-C. Photoluminescence (PL) results show thermal quenching (at 150 °C) and thermal degradation (after 600 °C treatment in air) are improved by 5% and 8% with a small decrease of PL intensity in 5% SiC doped AlON: Eu²⁺ phosphor. To explain these observations, first-principles computational study was performed to understand the Si and C configuration in AlON:Eu²⁺. The calculations reveal that Si and C elements are not randomly distributed in AlON lattice. It was found that Si prefers occupying tetrahedral sites (Td-Si) and the insertion of C in Td-Si is always energetically favorable, which results in the formation of SiC₄ and SiNC₃ clusters. Thus, the Al-N substitution by Si-C induces a stronger local structure, which accounts for the emission redshift and better thermal stability.

Synthesizing pure phase Ba₃Si₆O₉N₄ by the conventional solid-state reaction method is challenging because of easily formed secondary phase Ba₃Si₆O₁₂N₂ showing similar crystal structure. In this work, an alternative low temperature synthesis method is presented, and a series of green to blue emitting (Ba, Sr)₃Si₆O₉N₄: Eu²⁺ phosphors were prepared by a mechanochemical activation route. Variations in photoluminescence properties and crystal structure, as induced by the change in phosphor composition, were investigated. Under ultraviolet-light excitation, Ba₃Si₆O₉N₄: Eu²⁺ phosphor exhibited a strong narrow green emission at 518 nm and simultaneously a weak emission at 405 nm, which are ascribed to different Eu/Ba sites in Ba₃Si₆O₉N₄ lattice proved by Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations. A continuous green to blue emission in (Ba, Sr)₃Si₆O₉N₄: Eu²⁺ phosphors could be achieved by tuning the crystal structure and local coordination environment acting on Eu²⁺ with Sr/Ba substitution. More Sr/Ba substitution improved thermal quenching and resulted in a different characteristic of emission peak shift upon increasing the temperature.