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Luminescent nanoparticle-arrays synthesized via polymer pen lithography

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Abstract

We report a high-throughput approach to generating lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticle (UCNP) arrays through polymer pen lithography (PPL), where instead of the expensive block co-polymer, two types of polymers are employed with one working as ink carrier, e.g., polyethylene glycol-400 (PEG-400) to facilitate smooth transfer from the tip to the substrate and the other, e.g., polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), as chelator to ensure successful patterning of metal ions. The strong coordination of PVP with rare earth ions (RE3+) is the key for weakening the interaction between RE3+ ions and the carrier PEG-400 so that the good mobility of ink can be retained. Further experimental results have shown that besides PVP, small molecules with functional groups that can coordinate with RE3+ ions, such as oleic acid, can also serve the same role as PVP, which greatly enriches the ink library for PPL. Over 1 cm2 area arrays comprising individual UCNP can be reliably generated with characteristic upconversion luminescence. This strategy not only allows reliable production of individual UCNP arrays, it also paves new avenue to the precise synthesis of multifunctional NPs for lasing, imaging, encryption, and anticounterfeiting.

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Acknowledgements

The work reported here was supported by the Major Research Program Cultivation Project of National Science Foundation of China (No. 91956107) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 2201101389, 21871137, 62122028, and 11974123).

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Author notes

  1. Ping Wang and Shuyi Bao contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Advanced Materials, Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211816, China

    Ping Wang, Shuyi Bao, Ce Li, Zhang Jiang, Hao Song, Yilin Wang & Ling Huang

  2. Centre for Optical and Electromagnetic Research, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Optical Information Materials and Technology, National Centre for International Research on Green Optoelectronics, South China Academy of Advanced Optoelectronics, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510006, China

    Shuqian Qiao & Qiuqiang Zhan

  3. College of Chemistry, State Key Laboratory of the Chemistry and Utilization of Carbon Based Energies, Xinjiang University, Urumqi, 830046, China

    Ling Huang

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  1. Ping Wang
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Correspondence to Qiuqiang Zhan or Ling Huang.

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Wang, P., Bao, S., Qiao, S. et al. Luminescent nanoparticle-arrays synthesized via polymer pen lithography. Nano Res. 16, 3125–3129 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4968-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4968-0

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