The marriage of perovskite nanocrystals with lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles for advanced optoelectronic applications

The exceptional optoelectronic properties of lead halide perovskite nanocrystals (PeNCs) in the ultraviolet and visible spectral regions have positioned them as a promising class of semiconductor materials for diverse optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications. However, their limited response to near-infrared (NIR) light due to the intrinsic bandgap (>1.5 eV) has hindered their applications in many advanced technologies. To circumvent this limitation, it is of fundamental significance to integrate PeNCs with lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) that are capable of efficiently converting low-energy NIR photons into high-energy ultraviolet and visible photons. By leveraging the energy transfer from UCNPs to PeNCs, this synergistic combination can not only expand the NIR responsivity range of PeNCs but also introduce novel emission profiles to upconversion luminescence with multi-dimensional tunability (e.g., wavelength, lifetime, and polarization) under low-to-medium power NIR irradiation, which breaks through the inherent restrictions of individual PeNCs and UCNPs and thereby opens up new opportunities for materials and device engineering. In this review, we focus on the latest advancements in the development of PeNCs-UCNPs nanocomposites, with an emphasis on the controlled synthesis and optical properties design for advanced optoelectronic applications such as full-spectrum solar cells, NIR photodetectors, and multilevel anticounterfeiting. Some future efforts and prospects toward this active research field are also envisioned.