Recent Progress on Spectroscopy of Lanthanide Ions Incorporated in Semiconductor Nanocrystals

Doping luminescent lanthanide ions into semiconductor nanocrystals is an ideal approach for developing nanodevices for various applications. Quantum confinement effects are expected for lanthanide ions doped in small semiconductor nanocrystals. The most recent progress on the synthesis and spectroscopy of lanthanide ions in various semiconductor nanocrystals such as II - VI, III - V and IV - VI families were systematically reviewed, focusing on our recent findings on the optical spectroscopy of Eu3+ doped in ZnO and TiO2 nanocrystals by wet chemical synthesis. The energy transfer from the band-gap excitation to lanthanides further confirmed that lanthanide ions could be successfully incorporated into the lattice sites in spite of the mismatch in ionic radii.