si nh 2 and mg in a molar ratio of 1 1 3 the mixture is heated in an open tungsten crucible to 900 u00b0 c in 1 5 h under nitrogen atmosphere kept for 8 h at this temperature and subsequently quenched to room temperature by switching off the furnace a homogeneous powder containing m eu mg 3 sin 4 is obtained alternative synthesis of mmg 3 sin 4 eu m ca sr ba a mixture of mf 2 euf 3 mg 3 n 2 si nh 2 and lin 3 in a molar ratio 0 99 0 01 1 1 2 in li flux is fired in weld shut tantalum ampoules for 24 h at 900 u00b0 c mmg 3 sin 4 eu is obtained fluoride byproducts can be removed by sublimation under vacuum excitation and emission were measured with a custom made spectrofluorimeter the herein described phosphors are well excitable in the blue spectral range which makes them especially useful for application in phosphor converted leds with blue pump emission most of the systems have surprisingly an excitation maximum at or close to 450 nm emission spectra of some systems are depicted in fig2 on the y axis the normalized intensities are displayed on the x axis the wavelength in nm the emission spectra of ba 0 95 sr 0 05 mg 2 ga 2 n 4 eu 1 bamg 2 ga 2 n 4 eu 2 srmg 3 sin 4 eu 3 srmg 2 al 2 n 4 eu 4 and bamg 3 sin 4 eu 5 are displayed the latter two are nearly.