Single-crystal phosphors for high-brightness white LEDs/LDs

White light-emitting diodes (wLEDs) are the new environmental friendly sources for general lighting purposes. For applications requiring a high-brightness, current wLEDs present overheating problems, which drastically decrease their emission efficiency, color quality and lifetime. This work gives an overview of the recent investigations on single-crystal phosphors (SCPs), which are proposed as novel alternative to conventional ceramic powder phosphors (CPPs). This totally new approach takes advantage of the superior properties of single-crystals in comparison with ceramic materials. SCPs exhibit an outstanding conversion efficiency and thermal stability up to 300 degrees C Furthermore, compared with encapsulated CPPs, SCPs possess a superior thermal conductivity, so that generated heat can be released efficiently. The conjunction of all these characteristics results in a low temperature rise of SCPs even under high blue irradiances, where conventional CPPs are overheated or even burned. Therefore, SCPs represent the ideal, long-demanded all-inorganic phosphors for high-brightness white light sources, especially those involving the use of high-density laser-diode beams.