High-efficiency luminescence in optical glass via the controllable crystallization of KYbF nanocrystals depending on the dopants.

A transparent glass ceramic (GC) is designed via the controllable precipitation of nanocrystals. It is shown that the crystallization in GC deeply depends on the doping of . ions are spontaneously distributed in the fluoride crystal environments without the ionic substitution process of traditional GC. As a result, high-efficiency upconversion (UC) luminescence is achieved in GC. The UC quantum yield value of the --codoped GC is as high as 1.44±0.02, which is more than 20 times higher than the traditional GC containing crystals. The designed GC offers opportunities for the promising development of active optical devices, and the crystallization strategy of this GC provides a powerful solution to conquer the bottleneck in luminescence efficiency of the traditional GCs.