CaZnOS was described as the first alkaline earth zinc oxysulfide compound in 1977 by V. I. Yarygin, M. M. Shokarev, V. E. Mamaev, I. M. Kolganov, N. I. Kopylov: Izvestija Akademii Nauk SSSR, Metally 2 (1977) 104-7.
Furthermore, the preparation, structure and physical properties of CaZnOS were presented in several publications, e.g., in S. A. Petrova, V. P. Marevich, R. G. Zakharov, E. N. Selivanov, V. M. Chumarev, L. Yu. Udoeva: Doklady Chemistry, 393 (2003) p. 255-258 and T. Sambrook, C. F. Smura, S. J. Clarke, K. M. Ok, P. Shiv Halasyamani: Inorg. Chem. 46 (2007) p. 2571-2574. Additionally, the preparation and structure of BaZnOS were published by S. Broadley, Z. A. Gál, F. Corá, C. F. Smura, S. J. Clarke in Inorg. Chem. 44 (2005) p. 9092-9096. It has been shown that CaZnOS and BaZnOS crystallize in different structures whereas CaZnOS has a hexagonal symmetry with a space group of P63mc and BaZnOS an orthorhombic one with a space group of Cmcm.
A first BaZnOS-based phosphor activated by Cu was presented in Xia, Y., et al.: “Luminescence properties of Cu-activated BaZnOS phosphor” in Solid State Science, 2007, 9, 1074. Additionally, BaZnOS-based phosphors that are activated by Mn and Cu are disclosed in CN 101081979 A.