| The goals of this thesis are to provide an improved understanding of luminescent materials, and to exploit their properties to achieve bright, efficient, and manufacturable red, green, and blue (RGB) phosphors for use in full-color flat-panel displays. A high-luminance, high-efficiency, full-color alternating-current thin-film electroluminescent (ACTFEL) phosphor system, capable of being processed at temperatures below the glass substrate melting temperature, has been developed through the use of source layer diffusion doping (SLDD) of atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) deposited SrS thin-films. The development of ACTFEL phosphors has also been advanced through the exploration of alternate phosphor materials, such as SrxCa 1−xS:Eu,Cu and (Ba.Zn)S:Mn.; This thesis offers new insight into the nature of ACTFEL device operation, especially SrS:Cu ACTFEL devices. A comparison of “EL” thermal quenching trends for evaporated ZnS:Mn, ALE ZnS:Mn, ALE SrS:Ce, sputtered SrS:Cu,Ag, and sputtered multi-layer SrS:Cu,Ag/SrS:Ce ACTFEL devices is presented. ZnS:Mn ACTFEL devices exhibit the least amount of EL thermal quenching, which is attributed to non-radiative recombination. SrS:Cu and SrS:Cu,Ag ACTFEL devices possess the greatest amount of thermal quenching, which is primarily EL thermal quenching. The extent of EL thermal quenching is significantly reduced in a multi-layer SrS:Cu,Ag/SrS:Ce ACTFEL device, compared to that of a single-layer SrS:Cu or SrS:Cu,Ag ACTFEL device. The operation of SrS:Cu is examined as a function of temperature; the space charge density is found to increase with temperature up to ∼250 K with an activation energy of 0.02 eV. The space charge density in SrS:Cu ACTFEL devices is estimated as ∼1.8 × 1016, which yields estimates of the cathode phosphor field and the interfacial trap depth of ∼1.3 MV/cm and ∼0.73 eV, respectively. |
