Hydrothermal Synthesis and Upconversion Properties of About 19 nm Sc2O3: Er3+, Yb3+ Nanoparticles with Detailed Investigation of the Energy Transfer Mechanism

Nanoscale Research Letters

Fen Li¹  Li Chen¹  Yaru Peng²  Jing Li²  Yuxin Huang²  Jiajia Mu³  Yongshi Luo⁴  Ligong Zhang⁴ 

[1] School of Chemical Engineering & Advanced Institute of Materials Science, Changchun University of Technology;School of Materials Science and Engineering, Changchun University of Technology;School of Science, Beihua University;State Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Applications, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences;

关键词: Sc2O3;    Hydrothermal synthesis;    Upconversion;    Energy transfer;    Er3+/Yb3+;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s11671-018-2794-9

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Abstract The Sc2O3: Er3+, Yb3+ nanoparticles (NPs) with the size of about 19 nm were synthesized by a simple oleic acid-mediated hydrothermal (HT) process. X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), upconversion luminescence (UCL) spectra, and decay curves were used to characterize the resulting samples. The Sc2O3: Er3+, Yb3+ NPs made by HT method exhibit the stronger UCL, of which the red UCL are enhanced by a factor of 4, in comparison with those samples prepared by solvothermal (ST) method at the same optimized lanthanide ion concentrations. The UCL enhancement can be attributed to the reduced surface groups and longer lifetimes. Under 980 nm wavelength excitation, the decay curves of Er3+: (2H11/2, 4S3/2) → 4I15/2 and 4F9/2 → 4I15/2 emissions for Sc2O3: Er3+, Yb3+ NPs samples are both close to each other, resulting from the cross relaxation energy transfer from Er3+ to Yb3+, followed by an energy back transfer within the same Er3+-Yb3+ pair. Also, under the relatively low-power density, the slopes of the linear plots of log(I) vs. log(P) for red and green emissions are 2.5 and 2.1, implying the existence of three-photon processes. Our results indicate that Sc2O3: Er3+, Yb3+ NPs is an excellent material for achieving intense UCL with small size in the biological fields.

【 授权许可】

Unknown