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Sunlight-activated long-persistent luminescence in the near-infrared from Cr3+-doped zinc gallogermanates

Nature Materials volume 11, pages 58–63 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Visible-light persistent phosphors are being widely used as self-sustained night-vision materials because of their sufficiently strong and long afterglow (>10 h) and their ability to be excited by sunlight as well as room light. In contrast, persistent phosphors for near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths are lacking. Here we report a series of Cr3+-doped zinc gallogermanate NIR persistent phosphors that exhibit strong emission at 650–1,000 nm, extending beyond the typical 690–750 nm, and with a super-long afterglow of more than 360 h. These new NIR persistent phosphors are all-weather materials that can be rapidly, effectively and repeatedly charged by natural sunlight in almost all kinds of outdoor environment. Seconds to minutes of sunlight activation can result in more than two weeks of persistent NIR light emission. This new series of NIR persistent materials have potential applications in night-vision surveillance, solar energy utilization and in vivo bio-imaging.

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Figure 1: Excitation and emission spectra.
Figure 2: NIR afterglow decay of Zn3Ga2Ge2O10:0.5%Cr3+ discs irradiated by a 4 W 365 nm ultraviolet lamp.
Figure 3: Effectiveness of excitation wavelength (energy) for persistent luminescence of Zn3Ga2Ge2O10:0.5%Cr3+ discs at room temperature.
Figure 4: NIR emission in an aqueous solution and a NIR paint drawing.
Figure 5: A schematic representation of the persistent NIR luminescence mechanism.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from the US Office of Naval Research (N00014-07-1-0060), the National Science Foundation (CAREER DMR-0955908), the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund (PRF 50265-DN10) and the University of Georgia Research Foundation. We thank R. S. Meltzer for discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, USA

    Zhengwei Pan, Yi-Ying Lu & Feng Liu

  2. Faculty of Engineering, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, USA

    Zhengwei Pan & Feng Liu

Authors
  1. Zhengwei Pan
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  2. Yi-Ying Lu
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  3. Feng Liu
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Contributions

Z.P. conceived and designed the experiments, and was responsible for the project planning. Y-Y.L. and F.L. carried out material synthesis and spectral measurements. F.L. investigated the persistent luminescence mechanism. Z.P. and F.L. carried out the NIR imaging. Z.P. and F.L. co-wrote the paper. All of the authors discussed the results.

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Correspondence to Zhengwei Pan.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Pan, Z., Lu, YY. & Liu, F. Sunlight-activated long-persistent luminescence in the near-infrared from Cr3+-doped zinc gallogermanates. Nature Mater 11, 58–63 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3173

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