Tuning Luminescence of Lanthanide-Doped Upconversion Nanoparticles through Simultaneous Binary Cation Exchange

Dual-mode luminescent nanomaterials have outstanding performance in biosensing and multistage anticounterfeiting. Herein, we report the tuning of optical attributes of lanthanide-doped nanoparticles (NPs) via simultaneous binary cation exchange. We show that cation exchange of NaYF₄:Yb/Er (18/2 mol %)@NaLnF₄ (Ln = Y and Gd) NPs with a combination of Ce³⁺ and Tb³⁺ enables the resultant nanoparticles to exhibit both upconversion and downshifting emissions upon excitation at 980 and 254 nm, respectively. We find that in addition to introducing downshifting emission attributes, the use of Tb³⁺ ions allows conservation of the integrity of the parent core@shell NPs by decreasing the dissociation tendency caused by Ce³⁺ ions during the cation exchange. The upconversion color output can be tuned from green to red and blue by changing lanthanide combinations in the core NPs. This work not only provides an effective strategy for the optical tuning of lanthanide-doped NPs but also builds a platform for probing the difference in the reactivity nature of lanthanides.