Exploring the potential of lanthanide-doped oxyfluoride materials for bright green upconversion and their promising applications towards temperature sensing and drug delivery.

The most efficient upconversion (UC) materials reported to date are based on fluoride hosts with low phonon energies, which reduce the amount of nonradiative transitions. In particular, NaYF doped with Yb and Er at appropriate ratios is known as one of the most efficient UC phosphors. However, its low thermal stability limits its use for certain applications.

Solution-Processed Pb(Zr,Ti)O Thin Films with Strong Remnant Pockels Coefficient.

In contrast to the widely studied electrical properties of Pb(Zr,Ti)O thin films, which have led to their applicability in various application areas such as thin film capacitors, microelectronics, and ferroelectric memories, the electro-optic (EO) properties are far less studied, which hinders the applicability of Pb(Zr,Ti)O films for EO applications such as heterogeneously integrated phase modulators in silicon (Si) photonics. Therefore, the EO properties of Pb(Zr,Ti)O films need to be further investigated to pave the way for the applicability of Pb(Zr,Ti)O films in EO applications. As the EO properties of ferroelectric thin films strongly depend on their crystal phase and texture, which in turn are influenced by the method of film fabrication.

From Gel to Crystal: Mechanism of HfO and ZrO Nanocrystal Synthesis in Benzyl Alcohol.

Nonaqueous sol-gel syntheses have been used to make many types of metal oxide nanocrystals. According to the current paradigm, nonaqueous syntheses have slow kinetics, thus favoring the thermodynamic (crystalline) product. Here we investigate the synthesis of hafnium (and zirconium) oxide nanocrystals from the metal chloride in benzyl alcohol.

From Corrosion Casting to Virtual Dissection: Contrast-Enhanced Vascular Imaging using Hafnium Oxide Nanocrystals.

Vascular corrosion casting is a method used to visualize the three dimensional (3D) anatomy and branching pattern of blood vessels. A polymer resin is injected in the vascular system and, after curing, the surrounding tissue is removed. The latter often deforms or even fractures the fragile cast.

Fatty acid capped, metal oxo clusters as the smallest conceivable nanocrystal prototypes.

Metal oxo clusters of the type MO(OH)(OOCR) (M = Zr or Hf) are valuable building blocks for materials science. Here, we synthesize a series of zirconium and hafnium oxo clusters with ligands that are typically used to stabilize oxide nanocrystals (fatty acids with long and/or branched chains). The fatty acid capped oxo clusters have a high solubility but do not crystallize, precluding traditional purification and single-crystal XRD analysis.