Patent ID: 7608862

Claim:
A light emitting device comprising: at least two lead wires, a light emitting element that is disposed on an end portion of at least one of said lead wires and connected electrically with the end portion and the other of said lead wires, and a phosphor that absorbs at least part of the light emitted from said light emitting element and emits fluorescence having a different wavelength from the wavelength of the light emitted from said light emitting element, the phosphor having an excitation spectrum including a peak fluorescent intensity at a peak wavelength from 457 nm to 467 nm and a flat region ranging over 20 nm or more around the peak wavelength, the flat region providing reduction in fluorescent intensities by 3 percent or less as compared to the peak fluorescent intensity, wherein said phosphor is a rare-earth-metal activated SiAlON ceramics phosphor, wherein said SiAlON ceramics phosphor is a divalent-europium activated Ca-alpha-SiAlON ceramics phosphor, and wherein said SiAlON ceramics phosphor is expressed in a general formula as: Ca x (Si, Al) 12 (O,N) 16 :Eu 2+ y wherein the Ca composition x is in a range of from 0 to 1.0 and the Eu composition y is in a range of from 0 to 0.25.