Hydrothermal Targeted‐Explosion Synthesis of Hollow/Porous Upconversion Nano‐ and Microcrystals with Potential for Luminescent Displays and Biological Imaging

Abstract: A facile, one-pot, hydrothermal ‘targeted-explo-sion’ strategy was developed to construct b-NaGdF 4 and b-NaYF 4 hollow/porous upconversion nano- and microcrystals.We found that potassium sodium tartrate (PST) stronglycomplexes rare earth ions, which can reduce the reactionspeed between rare earth ions and fluorine ions, leading tosize- and morphology-controlled crystals in a hydrothermalsynthesis. Moreover, we simulated the ‘targeted-explosion’reaction process through structural mechanics finite elementcalculations to validate the feasibility of a ‘layer-by-layerblasting’ mechanism. Finally, we fabricated various modelsto show the potential of these materials for luminescent dis-plays and as rare earth illuminants excited by near-infraredlight. In addition, the synthesized hollow/porous upconver-sion crystals were used for different types of biological imag-ing. Introduction In recent years, great efforts have been devoted to the re-search of rare earth doped upconversion nano- and microcrys-tals owing to their unique luminescent properties, such as theability to upconvert near-infrared (NIR) radiation into shorterwavelengths, as well as their superior physical and chemicalstability, sharp emissions, and low long-term toxicity.

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