Hedgehog-Like Upconversion Crystals: Controlled Growth and Molecular Sensing at Single-Particle Level

Xiaowang Liu; Xiyan Li; Xian Qin; Xiaoji Xie; Ling Huang; Xiaogang Liu

doi:10.1002/adma.201702315

Hedgehog-Like Upconversion Crystals: Controlled Growth and Molecular Sensing at Single-Particle Level

Adv Mater. 2017 Oct;29(37). doi: 10.1002/adma.201702315. Epub 2017 Aug 14.

Authors

Xiaowang Liu¹, Xiyan Li¹, Xian Qin¹, Xiaoji Xie², Ling Huang², Xiaogang Liu^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117543, Singapore.
² Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics & Institute of Advanced Materials, Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211816, P. R. China.
³ Center for Functional Materials, NUS (Suzhou) Research Institute, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215123, P. R. China.

PMID: 28804927
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201702315

Abstract

Topological control of nanostructures plays a crucial role in understanding the crystal growth process at the nanometer length scale. Here, the scalable synthesis of upconversion materials with distinct hedgehog-like morphologies by a seed-mediated synthetic procedure is reported. It is demonstrated that a close match in the crystal lattice between the core and shell components is essential for synthesizing such hierarchical nanostructures. These optical nanomaterials also enable the development of a single-particle-based platform for high-sensitivity molecular sensing.

Keywords: epitaxial growth; hierarchical control; kinetic synthesis; single-particle sensors; upconversion.