ReviewVisible-to-ultraviolet Upconvertion: Energy transfer, material matrix, and synthesis strategies

•The progress of upconversion (UC) material from visible-to-UV has been reviewed.•The intrinsic mechanisms of visible-to-UV UC were introduced.•The design strategies of UC from visible-to-UV and potential application in photocatalysis were focused.•The advantages and the limitations of visible-to-UV UC material are discussed.

In recent years, Upconversion (UC) material has attracted much attention because of its fantastic energy transfer capability of converting the low-energy photons into high-energy photons via anti-Stokes process. Among UC materials, the visible-to-UV UC materials exhibit remarkable potential in laser conversion, photo-catalysis, the sterilization as well as antibiosis in biological areas because of their capability of converting the visible radiation into ultraviolet emission. Considering the interesting UC process and large potential application of the visible-to-UV UC materials, it is necessary to overview its intrinsic UC mechanism, material structure, as well as material synthesis techniques for the development of UC material. This work focus on the visible-to-UV UC materials and review its current research situation, the challenges in its research field, as well as analyzing and comparing recent investigations to provide valuable evaluation for such materials both from theoretical and commercial perspective. The most effective UC matrix and luminescent centers in recent works were summarized and the intrinsic mechanisms of visible-to-UV UC were introduced. The material design strategies and techniques for the synthesis of visible-to-UV UC phosphors were focused. The advantages and the limitations of visible-to-UV UC material are discussed in detail, and a reasonable expectation for the emerging trends of such potential material is provided.

Graphical abstractDownload high-res image (187KB)Download full-size imageThis work focused on reviewing the energy transfer, material matrix, and synthesis strategies Visible-to-ultraviolet Upconvertion. Owning to its ability to manipulate and convert light energy, the visible-to-UV UC materials possess huge potential in biomaterial fields to realize anti-transfer of disease, and amazing potential in photo-catalytic fields to facilitate effective visible-light-driven photo-reactions like HER, OER and overall splitting water when combing them with high efficient UV-responsive photo-catalysts, thus beneficial for resolving the worldwide energy crisis and accompanied environmental problems. Moreover, the theoretical and commercial potential of visible-to-UV UC materials may be extended further to other relative optical research fields.