Electric field control of photoluminescence response in lanthanide doped ferroelectric materials: A brief review

Abstract

Tuning the photoluminescence (PL) properties of lanthanide ions not only provides a deeper understanding of the luminescence mechanism, but also promotes its potential applications in lighting industry, volumetric 3 D display, biological assaying, and medical imaging. The traditional chemical strategies, such as changing the types or concentration of doped ions, changing the composition of host materials, changing the preparation process, etc, can easily adjust the photo excitation, energy transfer and emission processes, which have been widely employed. In spite of the strong ability to tune luminescence intensity and wavelength, these chemical methods are irreversible, which is difficult to observe the dynamic luminescence process and unfavorable for real applications. Recently, enabling in-situ, real-time and reversibly control PL response by the application of electric field has been realized through doping lanthanide ions into ferroelectric host materials. Herein, the electric field control of PL response in lanthanide doped ferroelectric bulks and thin films is summarized. The intrinsic luminescence mechanism under electric field and possible application directions in the future are discussed.