An intense NIR emission from Ca14Al10Zn6O35:Mn(4+),Yb(3+)via energy transfer for solar spectral converters.

To date, most current reports on the development and optimization of solar spectral converters have described the utilization of energy transfer among rare-earth ions. Here, we introduce non-rare-earth ion Mn(4+) to transfer energy to Yb(3+), which can exhibit strong near-infrared luminescence. It can harvest UV-blue photons and exhibits intense NIR emission of Yb(3+) around 1000 nm, perfectly matching the maximum spectral response of Si solar cells. It demonstrates for the first time that efficient energy transfer occurs with a decrease in the excited state lifetime and red photoluminescence (PL) from Mn(4+) with increasing Yb(3+) concentration. These results demonstrate that the Mn(4+) ions can be an efficient and direct sensitizer harvesting UV-blue photons. It could provide new avenues for developing harvesting Si-based solar cells.