Upconverting luminescence based dual-modal temperature sensing for Yb3+/Er3+/Tm3+: YF3 nanocrystals embedded glass ceramic

Yb3+/Er3+/Tm3+ doped transparent glass ceramic containing orthorhombic YF3 nanoparticles was successfully synthesized by a melt-quenching method. After glass crystallization, tremendously enhanced (about 5000 times) upconversion luminescence, obvious Start-splitting of emission bands as well as long upconversion lifetimes of Er3+/Tm3+ confirmed the incorporation of lanthanide activators into precipitated YF3 crystalline environment with low phonon energy. Furthermore, temperature-dependent upconversion luminescence behaviors of glass ceramic were systematically investigated to explore its possible application as optical thermometric medium. Impressively, both fluorescence intensity ratio of Er3+: 2H11/2 → 4I15/2 transition to Er3+: 4S3/2 → 4I15/2 one and fluorescence intensity ratio of Tm3+: 3F2,3 → 3H6 transition to the combined Tm3+: 1G4 → 3F4/Er3+: 4F9/2 → 4I15/2 ones were demonstrated to be applicable as temperature probes, enabling dual-modal temperature sensing. Finally, the thermal effect induced by the irradiation of 980 nm laser was found to be negligible in the glass ceramic sample, being beneficial to gain intense and precise probing signal and detect temperature accurately.