Controlled growth, intense upconversion emissions and concentration induced luminescence switching of bifunctional Tm(3+) doped hexagonal NaYb0.55Gd0.45F4 nanorods.

Bifunctional hexagonal Tm(3+) doped NaYb0.55Gd0.45F4 nanorods with tunable size are prepared via in situ cation-exchange reaction using hydrothermal method. The measured field dependence of magnetization of the NaYb0.55Gd0.45F4 nanorods shows typical paramagnetic characteristics that can be ascribed to the non-interacting localized nature of the magnetic moment of rare-earth ions. When excited by a 980nm laser, these nanorods exhibit intense multi-color up-conversion (UC) emissions in infrared, red, blue and especially ultraviolet. In addition, luminescent switching between different UC emission wavelengths of 480nm and 450nm is observed by adjusting Tm(3+) doping concentration. Based on power-dependent spectral analyses, it is found that with the increase of Tm(3+) doping concentration, due to the suppressed saturation effect, the dominative UC process redistribute the populations at (1)G4 and (1)D2(Tm(3+)) states of Tm(3+) ion resulting in the above luminescent switching. Our results indicate that bifunctional hexagonal NaYb1-xGdxF4 nanocrystals have potential applications in miniaturized solid-state light sources, optical processing sensors and fluorescent biolabels.