Integrating temporal and spatial control of electronic transitions for bright multiphoton upconversion

Tianying Sun; Yuhua Li; Wai Lok Ho; Qi Zhu; Xian Chen; Limin Jin; Haomiao Zhu; Bolong Huang; Jun Lin; Brent E Little; Sai Tak Chu; Feng Wang

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-09850-2

Integrating temporal and spatial control of electronic transitions for bright multiphoton upconversion

Nat Commun. 2019 Apr 18;10(1):1811. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-09850-2.

Authors

Tianying Sun^{1

2}, Yuhua Li³, Wai Lok Ho³, Qi Zhu^{1

2}, Xian Chen^{1

2}, Limin Jin⁴, Haomiao Zhu⁵, Bolong Huang⁶, Jun Lin⁷, Brent E Little⁸, Sai Tak Chu⁹, Feng Wang^{10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong, SAR, China.
² City University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen, 518057, China.
³ Department of Physics, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong, SAR, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory on Tunable laser Technology, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Key Lab of Micro-Nano Optoelectronic Information System, Shenzhen Graduate School, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
⁵ Xiamen Institute of Rare-earth Materials, Haixi Institutes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, Fujian, 361000, China.
⁶ Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, SAR, China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, China.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, 710119, China.
⁹ Department of Physics, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong, SAR, China. saitchu@cityu.edu.hk.
¹⁰ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong, SAR, China. fwang24@cityu.edu.hk.
¹¹ City University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen, 518057, China. fwang24@cityu.edu.hk.

Abstract

The applications of lanthanide-doped upconversion nanomaterials are limited by unsatisfactory brightness currently. Herein, a general strategy is proposed for boosting the upconversion efficiency in Er³⁺ ions, based on combined use of a core-shell nanostructured host and an integrated optical waveguide circuit excitation platform. A NaErF₄@NaYF₄ core-shell nanoparticle is constructed to host the upconversion process for minimizing non-radiative dissipation of excitation energy by surface quenchers. Furthermore, an integrated optical microring resonator is designed to promote absorption of excitation light by the nanoparticles, which alleviates quenching of excited states due to cross-relaxation and phonon-assisted energy transfer. As a result, multiphoton upconversion emission with a large anti-Stokes shift (greater than 1150 nm) and a high energy conversion efficiency (over 5.0%) is achieved under excitation at 1550 nm. These advances in controlling photon upconversion offer exciting opportunities for important photonics applications.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't