Aerosol Flame Synthesis and Manipulating Upconversion Luminescence of Ultrasmall Y₂O₃:Yb^3+/Ho^3+ Nanoparticles

Abstract

The synthesis of upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) by flame aerosol is of great significance to realize industrial large-scale production of UCNPs and develop nanotechnology further. Here, for the first time, we successfully fabricated the ultrasmall Y2O3:Yb3+/Ho3+ UCNPs by a self-build swirl flame spray pyrolysis (SFSP) method with a high production rate of ∼40 g$ \cdot $ h−1. These flame-made UCNPs are all pure cubic phases with an average ultrasmall size of ∼14 nm. Excited by 980 nm laser, the synthesized UCNPs show bright green (2F4, 5S2 → 5I8) and relatively weak red (5F5 → 5I8) upconversion luminescence (UCL). Based on the UCL spectra of Y2O3:Yb3+/Ho3+ UCNPs, the optimal doping concentrations of 6 mol% Yb3+ and 0.1 mol% Ho3+ were determined to reach the most intense UCL. The dependence of UCL intensity and pump power was further analyzed, and it indicated that the green and red UCL are two-photon processes. In addition, the UCL properties with different synthesized conditions were also demonstrated. The UCL mechanism of these flame-made Y2O3:Yb3+/Ho3+ UCNPs were illustrated in detail. Our results prove that industrial large-scale production of continuous one-step synthesis of UCNPs by flame aerosol technology is completely feasible and deserves further study.

Keywords

• Photonic materials
• synthesis and fabrication methods
• luminiescence and fluorescence
• optical properties of photonic materials