The experimental investigation and optimization of lanthanide nanoparticles are complex and resource-consuming endeavors. A team led by Simon Spelthann has now presented a new, improved numerical model that enables the understanding and prediction of the spatial and temporal excitation dynamics. They have published their results in the current issue of Advanced Optical Materials.
The model is applicable to any type of lanthanide nanoparticle system and is able to predict the excited state lifetime and the quantum yield of a size series with only a low uncertainty. The authors have also numerically demonstrated a proven strategy to suppress quenching. Here, the nanoparticles are surrounded by a neutral shell, which led to a 44 per cent improvement in the excited state lifetime and the quantum yield and it required significantly much less time and experimental resources.
Overall, the presented model contributes to a deeper understanding of the dynamics in nanoparticles and reveals new spatial-temporal effects, such as energy trapping. This opens up new application areas such as highly efficient nanoparticle lasers in the visible spectral range or novel nano-quantum storage devices.
Within the framework of QuantumFrontiers, the new model can now be used to optimise nanoparticles, for example, and thus serve as a composite amplification medium for flexible and visible lasers, for example based on optical fibres.
The publication is also the cover article of the prestigious journal Advanced Optical Materials. The artwork on the cover shows a mainboard with a central processing unit from which a hologram of an optimized nanocrystal arises. The background shows experimental information (size, doping) that is converted into digits and enters the computation.
Original publication
Predicting the Excitation Dynamics in Lanthanide Nanoparticles
Simon Spelthann, Jonas Thiem, Oliver Melchert, Rajesh Komban, Christoph Gimmler, Ayhan Demicran, Axel Ruehl, Detlev Ristau
Advanced Optical Materials 11, 2300096 (2023)
DOI: 10.1002/adom.202300096
