Understanding the influence of nanoenvironment on luminescence of rare-earth ions

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the recent results on upconversion and photoluminescence of rare-earth ions in nanoenvironments. The role of the rare-earth ion concentration, crystal size and crystal phase on the up and downconversion emission of rare-earth ions in oxide nanocrystals and their underlying mechanisms are discussed. It is also found that the luminescence lifetime of the excited state rare-earth ions is sensitive to the particle crystalline phase and size. The analysis suggests that the modifications of radiative and nonradiative relaxation mechanisms are due to local symmetry structure of the host lattice and crystal size respectively.