Realizing up-conversion fluorescence tuning in lanthanide-doped nanocrystals by femtosecond pulse shaping method.

Shian Zhang,Jianrong Qiu,Jingxin Ding,Zhenrong Sun,Tianqing Jia,Xu Shuwu,Yunhua Yao,Pei Liu

doi:10.1038/srep13337

Abstract

The ability to tune color output of nanomaterials is very important for their applications in laser, optoelectronic device, color display and multiplexed biolabeling. Here we first propose a femtosecond pulse shaping technique to realize the up-conversion fluorescence tuning in lanthanide-doped nanocrystals dispersed in the glass. The multiple subpulse formation by a square phase modulation can create different excitation pathways for various up-conversion fluorescence generations. By properly controlling these excitation pathways, the multicolor up-conversion fluorescence can be finely tuned. This color tuning by the femtosecond pulse shaping technique is realized in single material by single-color laser field, which is highly desirable for further applications of the lanthanide-doped nanocrystals. This femtosecond pulse shaping technique opens an opportunity to tune the color output in the lanthanide-doped nanocrystals, which may bring a new revolution in the control of luminescence properties of nanomaterials.

Highlights

X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern and transition electron microscopy (TEM) image have been demonstrated in our previous work[35], which showed the existence of cubic α -NaYF4 crystalline phase and the homogeneous distribution of spherical nanocrystals with an average size of 20–30 nm
Since the c1o−nIItmmriaonx l, efficiencies of I547 and I656 are different by varying the modulation time Г, the green and red UC fluorescence tuning can be realized by this simple spectral phase modulation
Using a square phase modulation, we realized the green and red UC fluorescence tuning in Er3+-doped NaYF4 nanocrystals

Summary

Experimental arrangement

It is obvious that the green and red UC fluorescence dominates the visible light spectrum, and our main goal in this work is to tune the green and red UC fluorescence by shaping the femtosecond laser pulse with a spectral phase modulation. It is shown that the square phase modulation will lead to a sequence of subpulses with a controllable time separation and relative intensity. We fix the modulation depth Δ = π and vary the modulation time Г to control the green and red UC fluorescence intensities of Er3+-doped NaYF4 nanocrystals

Results and discussion

Conclusions

Additional Information