We report an ab initio〉/I〉 study of spectral properties of Ce^3＋ doped at Na＋ site of the NaF crys-tal, with the charge imbalance compensated by two oxygen substitutions for fluoride （OF＇） in the first coordination shell or two sodium vacancies （VNa＇） in the second coordination sphere. Density functional theory calculations within the supercell model are first performed to op-timize the local structures of the charge-compensated Ce^3＋, based on which Ce-centered embedded clusters are constructed and wave function-based CASSCF/CASPT2/RASSI-SO calculations are carried out to obtain the energies of 4f1 and 5d1 levels. By comparing the calculated 4f→5d transition energies with experimental excitation spectra at low temper-atures, the lowest 4f→5d transition band peaked at 390 nm is assigned to the Ce^3＋ with charge compensation by two coordinating OF＇ substitutions, rather than to the Ce^3＋ with compensation by two VNa0 vacancies, as proposed earlier. The electronic reason for the large redshift （by -8000 cm-1） of the lowest 4f→5d transition as induced by the two nearby OF＇ substitutions is analyzed in terms of the changes in the centroid shift and crystal-field splitting.
Charge compensation plays a very important role in modifying the local atomic structure and moreover the spectroscopic property of an isolated luminescent center, and so has been widely adopted in phosphor designs. In this work, we carry out first-principles calculations on various cases of Ce3＋ centers in Ca3Sc2Si3O12 by considering the effects of the charge com- pensations related to N3-, Sc3＋, Mn2＋, Mg2＋, and Na＋. Firstly, the local structures around Ce3＋ are optimized by using density functional theory calculations with supercell model. The 4f→5d transition energies of Ce3＋ are then obtained from the CASSCF/CASPT2/RASSI-SO calculations performed on Ce3＋-centered embedded clusters. The calculated energies support the previous assignments of the experimental spectra. Especially, a previously unclear peak is identified to be caused by Sc3＋ substituting Si4＋. The results show that the first-principles calculations can be used as an effective tool for predicting and interpreting spectroscopic properties of the phosphors.
