Discovering and harnessing optical nonlinearities of lanthanide nanocrystals

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• Artiom Skripka (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
• Thursday 24 August 2023, 14:00-15:00
• Physics West 117.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Miguel Navarro-Cia.

Optical nonlinearities of lanthanide (Ln3+)-doped nanocrystals offer cutting-edge solutions to imaging, solar, and photonic applications. In photon avalanching nanoparticles (ANPs) – the most nonlinear of nanocrystals – a small increase of the pump power leads to many-fold enhancement of emission intensity, characterized by giant optical nonlinearities, s > 10. Following their discovery,[1] ANPs have been extensively studied for sub-diffraction imaging, however their extremely nonlinear and threshold-based luminescence is promising in optical information technologies – motivating to develop, optimize, and diversify ANPs. To meet above goals and advance application, we design ANPs by controlling their architecture, composition, and Ln3+ photophysics. We use top-down core/shell engineering to create diverse libraries of ANPs with rationally formed energy exchange networks which unlocks multiplexing and transforms conventional linear emitters (e.g. quantum dots) into highly nonlinear ones.[2] In parallel, bottom-up approach of materials discovery has led us to synthesize novel low-phononenergy nanocrystals that completely change the landscape of radiative and non-radiative processes of their Ln3+ dopants.[3] With that, we have uncovered photon avalanching emission with record-breaking optical nonlinearities s > 60. Together, these complimentary approaches provide a blueprint for building all-optical logic at the nanoscale, all the while accelerating knowledge and materials discovery. [1] Lee, C.; Xu, E. Z.; Liu, Y.; Teitelboim, A.; Yao, K.; Fernandez-Bravo, A.; Kotulska, A. M.; Nam, S. H.; Suh, Y. D.; Bednarkiewicz, A.; Cohen, B. E.; Chan, E. M.; Schuck, P. J. Giant Nonlinear Optical Responses from Photon-Avalanching Nanoparticles. Nature 2021, 589 (7841), 230–235. [2] Skripka, A.; Lee, M.; Qi, X.; Pan, J.-A.; Yang, H.; Lee, C.; Schuck, P. J.; Cohen, B. E.; Jaque, D.; Chan, E. M. A Generalized Approach to Photon Avalanche Upconversion in Luminescent Nanocrystals. Nano Lett. 2023, 23 (15), 7100–7106. [3] Zhang, Z.; Skripka, A.; Dahl, J. C.; Dun, C.; Urban, J. J.; Jaque, D.; Schuck, P. J.; Cohen, B. E.; Chan, E. M. Tuning Phonon Energies in Lanthanide-doped Potassium Lead Halide Nanocrystals for Enhanced Nonlinearity and Upconversion. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2023, 62 (1), e202212549

This talk is part of the Metamaterials and Nanophotonics Group Seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Bham Talks
• Metamaterials and Nanophotonics Group Seminars
• Physics West 117
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