Enhanced upconversion luminescence and controllable phase/shape of NaYF4:Yb/Er crystals through Cu2+ ion doping

Kaimin Du; Xia Xu; Shuang Yao; Pengpeng Lei; Lile Dong; Manli Zhang; Jing Feng; Hongjie Zhang

doi:10.1039/C7CE02227A

Enhanced upconversion luminescence and controllable phase/shape of NaYF₄:Yb/Er crystals through Cu²⁺ ion doping†

Kaimin Du,^ab Xia Xu,^ac Shuang Yao,^a Pengpeng Lei,^ac Lile Dong,^ab Manli Zhang,^ab Jing Feng*^a and Hongjie Zhang

*^a

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* Corresponding authors

^a State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 5625 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, China
E-mail: fengj@ciac.ac.cn, hongjie@ciac.ac.cn
Fax: +86 431 85698041
Tel: +86 431 85262127

^b University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

^c University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Abstract

Hexagonal phase (β-) NaYF₄:Yb/Er upconversion (UC) microrods doped with Cu²⁺ ions were prepared via a facile solvothermal method. Simultaneous phase and shape control of NaYF₄:Yb/Er crystals with enhanced upconversion luminescence (UCL) was successfully realized by codoping with Cu²⁺ ions. With an increasing Cu²⁺ ion concentration in the NaYF₄:Yb/Er system, the crystal structure changed from a mixture of α- and β-phases to the pure β-phase and was converted into highly uniform microrods. As for the Cu²⁺ ion doped β-NaYF₄:Yb/Er upconversion microrods, the maximum emission occurs with the sample added with 60 mol% Cu²⁺ ions and the UCL intensities of the green and red emissions were enhanced 37 and 25 times, respectively. Meanwhile, the possible mechanisms for the enhanced UCL of NaYF₄:Yb/Er crystals were also discussed in detail. Moreover, the temperature dependent UCL properties of 60 mol% Cu²⁺ ion doped β-NaYF₄:Yb/Er were studied under 980 nm excitation, which were temperature-sensitive over a wide temperature range from 123 K to 423 K. The change in UCL intensity influenced by temperature was discussed in detail.

This article is part of the themed collection: CrystEngComm 20th volume collection

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Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/C7CE02227A
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 27 Dec 2017
Accepted: 05 Feb 2018
First published: 07 Feb 2018

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CrystEngComm, 2018,20, 1945-1953

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Enhanced upconversion luminescence and controllable phase/shape of NaYF₄:Yb/Er crystals through Cu²⁺ ion doping

K. Du, X. Xu, S. Yao, P. Lei, L. Dong, M. Zhang, J. Feng and H. Zhang, CrystEngComm, 2018, 20, 1945 DOI: 10.1039/C7CE02227A

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