The electrical enhancement and reversible manipulation of near-infrared luminescence in Nd doped ferroelectric nanocomposites for optical switches

Abstract

Lanthanide ion doped ferroelectric oxides have unique ferroelectric and luminescence properties, which show great promise for future optoelectronic applications. Moreover, it is of great interest that the luminescence of ferroelectric materials can be effectively modulated by an external electric field. In this work, Nd³⁺ doped ferroelectric nanocomposites with near-infrared emission have been developed to study their optoelectronic properties and reversible tuning. At room temperature, the near-infrared emission has been enhanced over 4.6 times and the intensity can be controllably modulated by tuning the electric field. The mechanism behind the enhancement and reversible modulation has been investigated for designing luminescence memory or optoelectronic sensors. This work suggests a way for not only studying the luminescence properties of optical materials via polarization engineering, but also for potentially developing multifunctional materials for optoelectronic applications.