This paper reports a simple approach for the design of blue-excitation-light passing and phosphor-yellow-emission-light reflecting dielectric multilayers to recycle the backward emission of Y3Al5O12:Ce3+ (YAG:Ce) yellow phosphors on top of a blue InGaN light-emitting diode (LED) cup. The insertion of modified quarter-wave films of alternate high-and low-refractive index dielectric films (TiO2/SiO2) into the interface between a YAG: Ce phosphor layer and glass substrate resulted in 1.64 and 1.95 fold increase in efficiency and luminous efficacy of the forward white emission compared with that of a conventional phosphor on top of a blue LED cup with a lower correlated color temperature (< 4000K). (c) 2009 Optical Society of America