Intense near-infrared emission from ZnO-LiYbO_2 hybrid phosphors through efficient energy transfer from ZnO to Yb^3+

The ZnO-LiYbO(2) hybrid phosphors were sintered by the solid-state reaction method, in which the intense near-infrared emission around 1000 nm due to Yb(3+ 2)F(5/2)-->(2)F(7/2) transition was obtained due to the efficient energy transfer from ZnO to Yb(3+) ions. The growth of the LiYbO(2) crystal and the formation of the diffusion layer between LiYbO(2) and ZnO were confirmed by XRD, SEM and EDX studies. The high efficient energy transfer is benefited from the inter-diffusion of Li(+), Yb(3+) and Zn(2+) in the diffusion region. The spectroscopy results clearly indicated that the ZnO-LiYbO(2) hybrid phosphors can harvest the energy from near-UV photons in a broad wavelength region and effectively convert them into Yb(3+) near-infrared emission.