Influences of Growth Durations on Characteristics of NaYF4:(Yb,Tm) Upconversion Materials

Abstract

NaYF4:(Yb,Tm) upconversion materials were synthesized by the simple hydrothermal method. Growth duration was varied from 4h to 12h under a growth temperature of 150oC. The structural, optical and surface morphology characteristics of the NaYF4:(Yb,Tm) UC materials were investigated. The XRD and SEM results illustrated that the NaYF4:(Yb,Tm) materials were transformed from the multiple phases (hexagonal and cubic) to the single-phase (hexagonal prism) as growth duration being longer than 8h with the average diameter and length of these prisms being about 0.5 µm and 2 µm, respectively. Under 980 nm laser excitation, the NaYF4:(Yb,Tm) emits at peaks of 450 nm (1D2→ 3F4), 475 nm (1G4→3H6), 647 nm (1G4→3F4) and 697 nm (3F3→3H6), with the highest emission belonging to NaYF4:(Yb,Tm) grown for 8h.
 Keywords: NaYF4:(Yb,Tm), upconversion materials, photoluminescence, growth duration, hydrothermal method.
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Study of synthesis temperature effect on β-NaGdF4: Yb3+, Er3+ upconversion luminescence efficiency and decay time using maximum entropy method

“…The hydrothermal method allows obtaining NPs with different shapes (tubes, rods, wires, disks, spheres) and sizes in a broad range [39,40]. A variety of sizes and shapes was prepared by adjusting the fluorine-lanthanides molar ratio or varying reaction time [41]. However, the small particles obtained by this approach (smaller than 90 nm) usually are poorly luminescent due to their cubic phase [39].…”