NIR enhancement induced by refractive index differences between noble metal particles and nanocrystals in glass-ceramics

The use of optically active ions doped into photonic media containing noble metals is an intriguing area of photoluminescence (PL) research. In this paper, we present a new approach using nickel ions doped into photonic glass ceramics (GCs) containing Au metal NCs. We exploit the unique PL properties of Ni2+ embedded in ZnAl2O4 nanocrystals (NCs). Under the same conditions, the Au-ZAO duplex samples exhibit 2–3 times higher near-infrared (NIR) emission intensity and higher absorption intensity compared to the samples without Au metal. We provide direct evidence of energy harvesting around NCs through numerical simulations. The significant NIR PL properties of Ni2+ in Au-ZAO GCs can be explained by the significant dielectric coefficient difference between the Au metal, the surrounding medium, and the ZAO NCs. Furthermore, the intense and broad emission spectra of our samples cover the entire second biological NIR region, which makes them particularly useful for biomedical applications.