Understanding and tuning blue-to-near-infrared photon cutting by the Tm3+/Yb3+ couple

Lanthanide-based photon-cutting phosphors absorb high-energy photons and ‘cut’ them into multiple smaller excitation quanta. These quanta are subsequently emitted, resulting in photon-conversion efficiencies exceeding unity. The photon-cutting process relies on energy transfer between optically active lanthanide ions doped in the phosphor. However, it is not always easy to determine, let alone predict, which energy-transfer mechanisms are operative in a particular phosphor. This makes the identification and design of new promising photon-cutting phosphors difficult. Here we unravel the possibility of using the Tm3+/Yb3+ lanthanide couple for photon cutting. We compare the performance of this couple in four different host materials. Cooperative energy transfer from Tm3+ to Yb3+ would enable blue-to-near-infrared conversion with 200% efficiency. However, we identify phonon-assisted cross-relaxation as the dominant Tm3+-to-Yb3+ energy-transfer mechanism in YBO3, YAG, and Y2O3. In NaYF4, in contrast, the low maximum phonon energy renders phonon-assisted cross-relaxation impossible, making the desired cooperative mechanism the dominant energy-transfer pathway. Our work demonstrates that previous claims of high photon-cutting efficiencies obtained with the Tm3+/Yb3+ couple must be interpreted with care. Nevertheless, the Tm3+/Yb3+ couple is potentially promising, but the host material—more specifically, its maximum phonon energy—has a critical effect on the energy-transfer mechanisms and thereby on the photon-cutting performance.