Luminescent Nanostructures: Controlling Nanoscale Architecture for Multifunctionality

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Functional luminescent nanomaterials have garnered significant interest in recent years from both a fundamental viewpoint and for their potential applications spanning several sectors including health, food, safety, energy, and environment. Our fundamental understanding of the luminescent nanomaterials world, from their growth and structure, to their behavior after exogenous stimulation, is leading to the realization of engineered nanosystems with properties, or a combination thereof, never before observed. There exists, however, a great need to guide our basic understanding with tailored research to address explicit problems and to develop new applications. This program seeks to bridge this divide such that the information gleaned from newly engineered luminescent nanostructures can be exploited for innovative applications of importance to Canada. In the search for new luminescent nanomaterials, rare earth doped nanostructures are at the cutting edge due to their fascinating and versatile optical properties. Given this indisputable interest, I have developed a vigorous research program to investigate functional luminescent nanostructures at INRS-EMT with a particular focus on rare earth doped nanoparticles. In the framework of this Discovery Grant, my goal is to develop new rare earth doped nanostructures to unravel the basic relationships between structure and luminescence. This understanding will guide us towards engineering nanoarchitectures with new or enhanced luminescence properties for ultimate application integration. Specifically, over the course of the next five years, I will: (i) study new nanoarchitectures with controlled rare earth doping to mitigate and harness energy transfer processes amongst rare earth ions to decouple individual luminescence properties; (ii) Develop new nanoplatforms capable of simultaneously delivering optically generated heat and real-time temperature detection; (iii) Engineer hybrid nanostructures through the rational combination of rare earth doped nanostructures with other diverse near-infrared perturbable nanomaterials. This ambitious research program will result in innovative advances in the engineering of new functional luminescent nanostructures paving the way for the development of tangible applications consistent with the immediate needs of Canadian society, train highly qualified personnel to address the scientific and technological requirements of academia and industry, and underpin Canada's position of leadership in Advanced Materials research, in particular nanomaterials research and development through the realization of an emerging technology platform.