Issue 24, 2019

An enhanced energy migration strategy in upconverting nanocrystals: color-tuning with high quantum yield

Abstract

Increasing the variety and efficiency of emission spectra of lanthanide-doped upconverting nanocrystals (NCs) is of interest for their application as photonic markers. Recently, significant progress in this field has been made using multi-shell structures. Herein, we demonstrate an approach to tune the spectra of upconverting multi-shell NCs via a purely sensitizer-doped first shell sandwiched between a purely activator-doped core and second shell. The approach takes advantage of the intrinsic formation of interfaces in multi-shell structures and necessitates neither the co-doping of any of the nanodomains nor the alteration of any doping concentrations. Instead, the color is tuned via altering the thickness of the first shell, containing the sensitizing ions. This alters the interface volume ratio between the core and first shell, as well as the first and second shells. In turn, this varies the energy flow to the core and second shell and the resulting emission spectrum. This approach is shown to yield efficient color tuning in sub-20 nm multi-shell upconverting NCs, exhibiting a maximum upconversion quantum yield of 3.5% at 60 W cm−2 under 980 nm excitation. This novel concept considerably expands the number of possibilities for multi-color and efficient upconverting photonic markers via the introduction of geometrical features acting as new degrees of freedom to finely tune upconversion emission.

Graphical abstract: An enhanced energy migration strategy in upconverting nanocrystals: color-tuning with high quantum yield

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 mar 2019
Accepted
16 máj 2019
First published
16 máj 2019

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2019,7, 7371-7377

An enhanced energy migration strategy in upconverting nanocrystals: color-tuning with high quantum yield

D. Hudry, D. Busko, R. Popescu, D. Gerthsen, I. A. Howard and B. S. Richards, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2019, 7, 7371 DOI: 10.1039/C9TC01567A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements