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Preparation of core-shell NaGdF4 nanoparticles doped with luminescent lanthanide ions to be used as upconversion-based probes

Nature Protocols volume 9, pages 1634–1644 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Sodium gadolinium fluoride (NaGdF4) is an ideal host material for the incorporation of luminescent lanthanide ions because of its high photochemical stability, low vibrational energy and its ability to mediate energy exchanges between the lanthanide dopants. This protocol describes the detailed experimental procedure for synthesizing core-shell NaGdF4 nanoparticles that incorporate lanthanide ions into different layers for efficiently converting a single-wavelength, near-IR excitation into a tunable visible emission. These nanoparticles can then be used as luminescent probes in biological samples, in 3D displays, in solar energy conversion and in photodynamic therapy. The NaGdF4 nanoparticles are grown through co-precipitation in a binary solvent mixture of oleic acid and 1-octadecene. Doping by lanthanides with controlled compositions and concentrations can be achieved concomitantly with particle growth. The lanthanide-doped NaGdF4 nanoparticles then serve as seed crystals for subsequent epitaxial growth of shell layers comprising different lanthanide dopants. The entire procedure for the preparation and isolation of the core-shell nanoparticles comprising two epitaxial shell layers requires ∼15 h for completion.

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Figure 1: Schematic illustration of the co-precipitation strategy for the synthesis of lanthanide-doped NaGdF4 and its core-shell nanocrystals.
Figure 2: Photograph of the experimental setup for the preparation of the NaGdF4 nanocrystals.
Figure 3: Photograph of the experimental setup for the measurement of upconversion emission spectra.
Figure 4: Photographs of the reaction mixture at various stages of the preparation.
Figure 5: Characterization of the NaGdF4 nanocrystals.
Figure 6: Size-tuning of the NaGdF4 nanocrystals.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the National Research Foundation and the Economic Development Board (Singapore-Peking-Oxford Research Enterprise, COY-15-EWI-RCFSA/N197-1), and the Ministry of Education (MOE2010-T2-1-083). F.W. acknowledges CityU for a start-up grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Singapore, Singapore

    Feng Wang & Xiaogang Liu

  2. Department of Physics and Materials Science, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.,

    Feng Wang

  3. Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore, Singapore

    Renren Deng & Xiaogang Liu

  4. Center for Functional Materials, NUS (Suzhou) Research Institute, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China.,

    Xiaogang Liu

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Contributions

F.W. and R.D. performed the experiments. F.W., R.D. and X.L. developed the protocol. F.W. and X.L. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Feng Wang or Xiaogang Liu.

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Wang, F., Deng, R. & Liu, X. Preparation of core-shell NaGdF4 nanoparticles doped with luminescent lanthanide ions to be used as upconversion-based probes. Nat Protoc 9, 1634–1644 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2014.111

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