The following study was conducted by Scientists from State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China; Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Science, Key Laboratory of Photochemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, Institute of High Energy Physics and National Center for Nanosciences and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. Study is published in Nature Communications Journal as detailed below.
Nature Communications; Volume 11, Article Number: 1174; (2020)
Enhancing Multiphoton Upconversion through Interfacial Energy Transfer in Multilayered Nanoparticles
Abstract
Photon upconversion in lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles offers a wide variety of applications including deep-tissue biophotonics. However, the upconversion luminescence and efficiency, especially involving multiple photons, is still limited by the concentration quenching effect. Here, we demonstrate a multilayered core-shell-shell structure for lanthanide doped NaYF4, where Er3+ activators and Yb3+ sensitizers are spatially separated, which can enhance the multiphoton emission from Er3+ by 100-fold compared with the multiphoton emission from canonical core-shell nanocrystals. This difference is due to the excitation energy transfer at the interface between activator core and sensitizer shell being unexpectedly efficient, as revealed by the structural and temperature dependence of the multiphoton upconversion luminescence. Therefore, the concentration quenching is suppressed via alleviation of cross-relaxation between the activator and the sensitizer, resulting in a high quantum yield of up to 6.34% for this layered structure. These findings will enable versatile design of multiphoton upconverting nanoparticles overcoming the conventional limitation.
Source:
Nature Communications
URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14879-9
Citation:
Zhou, B., Tang, B., Zhang, C. et al. Enhancing multiphoton upconversion through interfacial energy transfer in multilayered nanoparticles. Nat Commun 11, 1174 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14879-9
