Abstract
Upconversion nanocrystals that converted near-infrared radiation into emission in the ultraviolet spectral region offer many exciting opportunities for drug release, photocatalysis, photodynamic therapy, and solid-state lasing. However, a key challenge is the development of lanthanide-doped nanocrystals with efficient ultraviolet emission, due to low conversion efficiency. Here, we develop a dye-sensitized, heterogeneous core–multishelled lanthanide nanoparticle for ultraviolet upconversion enhancement. We systematically study the main influencing factors on ultraviolet upconversion emission, including dye concentration, excitation wavelength, and dye-sensitizer distance. Interestingly, our experimental results demonstrate a largely promoted multiphoton upconversion. The underlying mechanism and detailed energy transfer pathway are illustrated. These findings offer insights into future developments of highly ultraviolet-emissive nanohybrids and provide more opportunities for applications in photo-catalysis, biomedicine, and environmental science.
Highlights
Lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles can absorb near-infrared (NIR) laser light and emit visible and ultraviolet light, with potential applications in bioimaging [1,2,3,4,5], biotherapy [6,7,8,9,10,11,12], and so on
We developed a dye‐sensitized heterogeneous lanthanide nanoparticle to regulate the energy transfer pathway for UV enhancement by 808 nm excitation
We systematically studied the influence of dye concentration, excitation wavelength, and dis‐
Summary
Lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles can absorb near-infrared (NIR) laser light and emit visible and ultraviolet light, with potential applications in bioimaging [1,2,3,4,5], biotherapy [6,7,8,9,10,11,12], and so on. UV light can be obtained by Nd3+ - and Yb3+ -sensitized upconversion [17,18,20,21], it is challenging to realize the high luminescence intensity needed to satisfy the minimum requirement of biological applications. This obstacle can be addressed in several ways: by controlling dopant composition [22], nanoparticle phase and size [23], excitation beam pulse width [24], and nanoparticle core–shell design [21,25,26,27,28,29].
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