Effective formation of Ag nanoclusters and efficient energy transfer to Yb3+ ions in borosilicate glasses for photovoltaic application

Three-Dimensional High Spatial Localization of Efficient Resonant Energy Transfer from Laser-Assisted Precipitated Silver Clusters to Trivalent Europium Ions

“…Regarding the europium emission intensity, the 612 nm Eu 3+ emission increases up to 5-fold and to 3.5-fold for excitations at 325 and 405 nm, respectively (Figure 9a,b), indicating an energy transfer from silver species to Eu 3+ ions [19,25,27]. The Eu 3+ emission enhancement is clearly dependent on the excitation wavelength, as a larger efficiency is observed for an excitation at 325 nm.…”

“…The local formation of various types of molecular silver clusters (labeled Ag m n+ , such as in ref [13]) by DLW was recently shown to be partially or fully inhibited by original dual-color DLW with the co-illumination of a CW UV beam with the fs IR structuring beam, opening interesting potentialities in terms of super-resolution DLW [14]. The co-doping of glasses with both rare earth ions and noble metal ions has been increasingly reported [15][16][17][18] for optoelectronic devices such as white light emitting diodes, three-dimensional displays, and solar cells [15,[17][18][19][20]. Indeed, efficient energy transfer between silver species and europium ions was described and achieved in various materials such as glasses and zeolite materials [15,16,[21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

Confinement of Highly Luminescent Silver Nanoclusters in FAUY Zeolite: A Study on the Formation Effects of Silver Nanoclusters and the Sensitization of Tb3+

“…Zeolites are microporous aluminosilicate crystalline with a large specific surface area that have shown many promising applications in biomedical, chemical, and petrochemical fields. − The framework of zeolites can be considered as SiO 2 with the partially isomorphic substitution of Si 4+ by Al 3+ and some counterbalancing cations like H + , Na + , K + , and NH 4 + inside the cages to neutralize the negative skeleton. Owing to their well-defined quantum-sized cages, high cation exchange capability, and high transparency in the visible range, zeolites have been considered as ideal scaffolds for luminescent centers with high surface energy that tend to aggregate, for example, metal clusters and quantum dots. − As efficient emitters in the whole visible region and flexible sensitizers for rare earth (RE) and transition metal ions, silver nanoclusters (Ag NCs) and their luminescence properties have been widely reported in glasses. − It was well established that the discrete energy level structure and emission wavelength of Ag NCs are closely related with the number of silver ions and atoms that constitute the nanoclusters. , The immobile and rigid glass matrices can provide a very long-term stability for Ag NCs but cannot define their size well. Generally, there is a size distribution of Ag NCs when dispersed in glasses, which becomes a challenge for the fundamental study on Ag NCs luminescence properties and the obtaining of Ag NCs activated luminescent phosphors with pure color.…”

Single‐Pulse‐Induced Ultrafast Spatial Clustering of Metal in Glass: Fine Tunability and Application

“…[ 12,21,33 ] The generation of blue–green‐emissive Ag clusters was also reported. [ 6,8,9 ] Generally, the PL of Ag clusters depends on the cluster size, the degree of ionization, and the local chemistry of the glass matrix. All of these are determined by the UFL–glass interaction as well as the glass properties (e.g., working point and thermal diffusivity), which could be responsible for the PL difference of various glasses.…”

“…[ 2–4 ] Recently, metal clusters in transparent solids have attracted extensive research attention and served a number of functions in photonic devices, such as light‐emitting diodes, solar cells, flexible screen monitors, and optical information storage. [ 5–13 ] In particular, the spatial‐controllable clustering of metals in transparent solids provides a unique flexibility in the 3D design of micro/nano and high‐capacity optical storage devices. [ 10–15 ] Although great effort has been devoted to generating metal clustering in glass using UV light irradiation, ultrafast laser (UFL) irradiation, X‐ray irradiation, and ion beam irradiation, precise control over the clustering process has been highly challenging for current and primary approaches, and clustering within a picosecond or even femtosecond range has not been realized.…”