Shaping the nanoworld: From precursors to functional nanocrystals

Understanding and Preventing Photoluminescence Quenching to Achieve Unity Photoluminescence Quantum Yield in Yb:YLF Nanocrystals

Ytterbium-doped LiYF4 (Yb:YLF) is a commonly used material for laser applications, as a photon upconversion medium, and for optical refrigeration. As nanocrystals (NCs), the material is also of interest for biological and physical applications. Unfortunately, as with most phosphors, with the reduction in size comes a large reduction of the...

Nucleation and Growth of Bipyramidal Yb:LiYF4 Nanocrystals─Growing Up in a Hot Environment

Lanthanide-doped LiYF4 (Ln:YLF) is commonly used for a broad variety of optical applications, such as lasing, photon upconversion and optical refrigeration. When synthesized as nanocrystals (NCs), this material is also of interest for biological applications and fundamental physical studies. Until now, it was unclear how Ln:YLF NCs grow from...

Characterisation of Sm²⁺-doped CsYbBr₃, CsYbI₃ and YbCl₂ for near-infrared scintillator application

Fast energy transfer from Yb²⁺ to Sm²⁺ is a requirement when using Yb²⁺ as a sensitiser for Sm²⁺ emission for near-infrared scintillator applications. This cannot be achieved through dipole-dipole interactions due to the spin-forbidden nature of the involved Yb²⁺ transition, making the...

Location of lanthanide impurity levels in the III-V semiconductor GaN

Knowledge from lanthanide spectroscopy on wide band gap (6–10?eV) inorganic compounds is used to understand and predict optical and electronic properties of the lanthanides in the III-V semiconductor GaN. For the first time the location of the 4fn ground state energy of each divalent and trivalent lanthanide ion relative to the valence and...

Electrical properties of SrCe095Yb005O3 in hydrogen containing atmospheres