Issue 7, 2017

Manipulating energy transfer in lanthanide-doped single nanoparticles for highly enhanced upconverting luminescence

Abstract

Energy transfer (ET) is of fundamental importance in tuning the optical performance of lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs). However, the fine control and manipulation of the ETs particularly for deleterious cross-relaxation type ETs (CR-ETs) in lanthanide-doped UCNPs remains a formidable challenge to date. Herein, we demonstrate a rational design strategy to manipulate the deleterious CR-ETs in lanthanide-doped UCNPs, by fine-tuning the distances at an extremely large length scale (>20 nm) among multiple lanthanide dopants that are simultaneously embedded into one single nanoparticle with specially designed multilayer nanostructures. The successful inhibition of the CR-ETs leads to a significantly enhanced upconversion luminescence signal with an intensity ∼70 times higher than that of co-doped conventional UCNPs. This finding paves a new way for the better control of the ETs in lanthanide-doped nanoparticles, and offers the possibility of constructing a series of promising single-nanocrystal-based anti-counterfeiting barcodes with well-identified UC emission color and lifetime outputs.

Graphical abstract: Manipulating energy transfer in lanthanide-doped single nanoparticles for highly enhanced upconverting luminescence

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
07 Feb 2017
Accepted
31 Mar 2017
First published
21 Apr 2017
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2017,8, 5050-5056

Manipulating energy transfer in lanthanide-doped single nanoparticles for highly enhanced upconverting luminescence

Z. Zhuo, Y. Liu, D. Liu, P. Huang, F. Jiang, X. Chen and M. Hong, Chem. Sci., 2017, 8, 5050 DOI: 10.1039/C7SC01393K

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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