Light Scattering-enhanced Upconversion Efficiency in Silica Microparticles-embedded Polymeric Thin Film

Triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion (TTA-UC) is a photochemical process wherein two or more low-energy photons are converted to a high-energy photon through a special energy transfer mechanism. Herein, we report a strategy to enhance the efficiency of TTA-UC through the light-scattering effect induced by silica microparticles (SM) embedded in polymeric thin films. By incorporating monodisperse uniform silica microparticles with a uniform size of 950 nm synthesized by Stober-based seeded growth method into UC polymeric thin films, the UC intensity in the 430-570 nm range was enhanced by as much as 64% when irradiated by 635 nm laser. Analyzing the lifetime of PdTPBP phosphorescence revealed that the presence of SM in the UC layer does not affect triplet-triplet energy transfer (TTET) between sensitizers and acceptors, supporting the enhancement of TTA-UC originated from the light-scattering effect. On the other hand, the incorporation of SM in UC layer is shown to enhance the triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA) efficiency, which results in a 1.5-fold increase of the empty set(UC), by scattering light source and thus increasing the number of excited photons to be utilized in TTA-UC process.