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Instantaneous ballistic velocity of suspended Brownian nanocrystals measured by upconversion nanothermometry

Nature Nanotechnology volume 11, pages 851–856 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Brownian motion is one of the most fascinating phenomena in nature1,2. Its conceptual implications have a profound impact in almost every field of science and even economics, from dissipative processes in thermodynamic systems3,4, gene therapy in biomedical research5, artificial motors6 and galaxy formation7 to the behaviour of stock prices8. However, despite extensive experimental investigations, the basic microscopic knowledge of prototypical systems such as colloidal particles in a fluid is still far from being complete. This is particularly the case for the measurement of the particles' instantaneous velocities, elusive due to the rapid random movements on extremely short timescales9. Here, we report the measurement of the instantaneous ballistic velocity of Brownian nanocrystals suspended in both aqueous and organic solvents. To achieve this, we develop a technique based on upconversion nanothermometry. We find that the population of excited electronic states in NaYF4:Yb/Er nanocrystals at thermal equilibrium can be used for temperature mapping of the nanofluid with great thermal sensitivity (1.15% K−1 at 296 K) and a high spatial resolution (<1 μm). A distinct correlation between the heat flux in the nanofluid and the temporal evolution of Er3+ emission allows us to measure the instantaneous velocity of nanocrystals with different sizes and shapes.

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Figure 1: Schematic characteristic timescales of Brownian motion in different regimes.
Figure 2: Schematic of the experimental set-up and upconversion luminescence measurements of the NaYF4:Yb/Er@NaYF4 nanofluid.
Figure 3: Time-dependent temperature profile of the NaYF4:Yb/Er@NaYF4 nanofluid.
Figure 4: Time-dependent temperature and heat-transfer-coefficient profiles of the fluid containing NaYF4:Yb/Er/Gd nanorods.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge V.S. Amaral for helpful discussion and Q. Sun for assistance with the nanorod synthesis. This work is supported by the CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials (FCT UID/CTM/50011/2013), financed by Portuguese funds through the FCT/MEC and when applicable co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. X.L. thanks the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) for support under contracts 122-PSE-0014 and 1231AFG028 (Singapore). W.H. is grateful for support from the National Basic Research Program of China (973, Grant 2015CB932200) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (61136003). C.D.S.B. and M.L.D. thank the FCT for postdoctoral research training (under grants SFRH/BPD/89003/2012 and SFRH/BPD/93884/2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and CICECO, Aveiro Institute of Materials, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, 3810–193, Portugal

    Carlos D. S. Brites, Mengistie L. Debasu & Luís D. Carlos

  2. Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics & Institute of Advanced Materials, Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211816, China

    Xiaoji Xie & Wei Huang

  3. Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, 2 Fusionopolis Way, 138634 Singapore, Singapore

    Xian Qin & Xiaogang Liu

  4. Key Laboratory for Organic Electronics and Information Displays & Institute of Advanced Materials, Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Runfeng Chen & Wei Huang

  5. Departament of Chemistry and CICECO, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, 3810–193, Portugal

    João Rocha

  6. Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, 117543 Singapore, Singapore

    Xiaogang Liu

Authors
  1. Carlos D. S. Brites
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  8. Xiaogang Liu
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  9. Luís D. Carlos
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Contributions

C.D.S.B. and L.D.C. conceived the projects. C.D.S.B., L.D.C., J.R. and X.L. co-wrote the manuscript with input from other authors. C.D.S.B., X.X. and M.L.D. performed the experiments. X.Q., X.L., R.C., W.H. and L.D.C. provided input into the design of the experiments.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xiaogang Liu or Luís D. Carlos.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Brites, C., Xie, X., Debasu, M. et al. Instantaneous ballistic velocity of suspended Brownian nanocrystals measured by upconversion nanothermometry. Nature Nanotech 11, 851–856 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.111

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