(INVITED) Recent advances in ultraviolet persistent phosphors

Phosphors with the ultraviolet (UV) persistent luminescence (PersL) may have potential applications such as photo-catalysis, anti-counterfeiting, water disinfecting and photochemistry. Up to now, no more than 20 UV PersL phosphors have been discovered, and no reviews of these UV PersL phosphors and the development in this field have been reported. For this regard, we present an overview of the known UV PersL materials and their PersL properties and list all possible challenges. We wish that this review could offer new inspirations for the following development of persistent luminescence in UV ranges and related applications.