The field of upconversion nanoparticle research has had some very interesting developments lately. Turns out a room-temperature quantum process called “superfluorescence” (also known by physicists as “Dicke superirradiance”) can be harnessed to massively increase the amount of light emitted by our favourite upconversion nanoparticles. More photons are (nearly) always better! This could lead to all sorts of exciting quantum sensing applications! This is particularly notable because room-temperature quantum processes are incredibly rare; superfluorescence in upconversion nanoparticles is attributed to the unique electron shell configuration of lanthanides, more specifically in the case of superfluorescence Nd3+ ions, which are relatively well protected from the external environment, enabling the important process of quantum coherence at such relatively high temperatures.
Read all about it in our Nanoscale Horizons paper, which was a collaboration with quantum physicist, Dr Peter Kirton.
DOI: 10.1039/D4NH00651H