Achieving Thermo‐Mechano‐Opto‐Responsive Bitemporal Colorful Luminescence via Multiplexing of Dual Lanthanides in Piezoelectric Particles and its Multidimensional Anticounterfeiting

• Published in: Advanced materials (Weinheim) Vol. 30; no. 49; pp. e1804644 - n/a
• Main Authors: Zhang, Jun‐Cheng, Pan, Cong, Zhu, Yi‐Fei, Zhao, Li‐Zhen, He, Hong‐Wei, Liu, Xiaofeng, Qiu, Jianrong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-12-2018
• Subjects: anticounterfeiting; Cybersecurity; Decoding; Emission; Erbium; Fluorescence; lanthanide; Lanthanides; Light emitting diodes; Luminescence; Materials science; Microparticles; Multiplexing; multiresponse; Optical properties; piezoelectric; Piezoelectricity; Polymer films; Smartphones; Stimuli; lanthanide; luminescence; anticounterfeiting; piezoelectric; multiresponse
• ISSN: 0935-9648; 1521-4095
• DOI: 10.1002/adma.201804644

Optical characteristics of luminescent materials, including emission color (wavelength), lifetime, and excitation mode, play crucial roles in data communication and information security. Conventional luminescent materials generally display unicolor, unitemporal, and unimodal (occasionally bimodal) emission, resulting in low‐level readout and decoding. The development of multicolor, multitemporal, and multimodal luminescence in a single material has long been considered to be a significant challenge. In this study, for the first time, the superior integration of colorful (red–orange–yellow–green), bitemporal (fluorescent and delayed), and four‐modal (thermo‐/mechano‐motivated and upconverted/downshifted) emissions in a particular piezoelectric particle via optical multiplexing of dual‐lanthanide dopants is demonstrated. The as‐prepared versatile NaNbO3:Pr3+,Er3+ luminescent microparticles shown are particularly suitable for embedding into polymer films to achieve waterproof, flexible/wearable and highly stretchable features, and synchronously to provide multidimensional codes that can be visually read‐out using simple and commonly available tools (including the LED of a smartphone, pen writing, cooling–heating stimuli, and ultraviolet/near‐infrared lamps). These findings offer unique insight for designing highly integrated stimuli‐responsive luminophors and smart devices toward a wide variety of applications, particularly advanced anticounterfeiting technology.
Thermo‐mechano‐opto‐responsive bitemporal (fluorescent and delayed) colorful (red–orange–yellow–green) luminescence is designed and achieved through optical multiplexing of dual‐lanthanides of Pr3+ and Er3+ in NaNbO3 piezoelectric microparticles. The smart materials are well‐embedded into polymer elastomers to show waterproof, flexible/wearable and highly‐stretchable features, and provide multidimensional codes that enable visual readout using commonly available tools (e.g., smartphone flashlight, pen writing, and cooling‐heating stimuli).