Highly efficient green up-conversion emission from fluoroindate glass nanoparticles functionalized with a biocompatible polymer

G Lesly Jimenez; Binita Shrestha; Tyron Porter; Bartlomiej Starzyk; Magdalena Lesniak; Marta Kuwik; Marcin Kochanowicz; Magdalena Szumera; R Lisiecki; D Dorosz

doi:10.1039/d2ra03171j

Highly efficient green up-conversion emission from fluoroindate glass nanoparticles functionalized with a biocompatible polymer

RSC Adv. 2022 Jul 11;12(31):20074-20079. doi: 10.1039/d2ra03171j. eCollection 2022 Jul 6.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Materials Science and Ceramics, AGH University of Science and Technology A. Mickiewicza 30 30-059 Krakow Poland glesly@agh.edu.pl.
² The University of Texas at Austin Austin 78-712 Texas USA.
³ Institute of Chemistry, University of Silesia Szkolna 9 40-007 Katowice Poland.
⁴ Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Bialystok University of Technology Wiejska 45D Street 15-351 Bialystok Poland.
⁵ Optical Spectroscopy Division, University of Wrocław plac Uniwersytecki 1 50-137 Wrocław Poland.

Abstract

Up-conversion nanoparticles have garnered lots of attention due to their ability to transform low energy light (near-infrared) into high-energy (visible) light, enabling their potential use as remote visible light nano-transducers. However, their low efficiency restricts their full potential. To overcome this disadvantage, fluoroindate glasses (InF₃) doped at different molar concentrations of Yb³⁺ and Er³⁺ were obtained using the melting-quenching technique, reaching the highest green emission at 1.4Yb and 1.75Er (mol%), which corresponds to the ⁴S_3/2 → ⁴I_15/2 (540-552 nm) transition. The particles possess the amorphous nature of the glass and have a high thermostability, as corroborated by thermogravimetric assay. Furthermore, the spectral decay curve analysis showed efficient energy transfer as the rare-earth ions varied. This was corroborated with the absolute quantum yield (QY) obtained (85%) upon excitation at 385 nm with QYEr = 17% and QYYb = 68%. Additionally, InF₃-1.4Yb-1.75Er was milled and functionalized using poly(ethylene glycol) to impart biocompatibility, which is essential for biomedical applications. Such functionalization was verified using FTIR, TG/DSC, and XRD.