Current Physical Chemistry

The advent of nanotechnology has profound influence on the development and applications of new types of lanthanide materials. Especially in the photonic industry, lanthanide based luminescent materials play a very important role in several advanced technological applications. Some of their practical applications include displays, lighting devices, lasers, fiber-optics, security inks and tags, optical sensors, drug delivery, bioimaging, therapy, photocatalysis, and microscopy. Though there are several other luminescent materials such as organic dyes and quantum dots utilized for these applications, lanthanide-based materials deserve special attention due to their important features such as sharp absorption, emission, longer decay time, photostability, less toxicity, etc. In this context, this special journal volume attempts to explore some of the recent developments in the photonics and technological applications of rare earth doped materials. This special issue contains six articles, divided into two volumes. The second volume Vol: 9, No. 3, 2019 contains three articles listed below. Optical properties of Erbium doped hydroxyapatite particle was reported by Pooja Gitty et al. [1]. Second article by Dr. Kumar is a comprehensive review article on the spectroscopy of near infrared emitting Nd,Er and Tm with particular emphasis on their applications in telecommunication and biomedical sensors [2]. Third article by Solange et al. [3] report the upconversion spectral properties of hydrothermally synthesized Ytterbium, Erbium and Thulium doped Y2O3.

Lanthanide doped optical materials deserve so much attention in today’s high technology photonics applications ranging from security authentication to cancer therapy. Trivalent lanthanide ions are considered to be the most stable and intrinsically, highly efficient light emitters in the vacuum ultraviolet to mid infrared region. The completely filled outer shell nature of these ions provides a well protective shielding and thereby the emission and absorption properties are not that much affected by the surrounding crystalline field which makes them potential candidates for developing high gain optical amplifiers as well as in several narrow band applications. These ions can be easily incorporated into several crystalline as well as amorphous materials so as to enable their applications in several diverse fields such as lasers, fiber amplifiers, solar cells, displays, catalysis, scintillators, and security markers as well as in biomedical areas such as cancer therapy, bioimaging and other detection and identification purposes. In this context, this special journal volume attempts to explore some of the recent developments a photonics and technological applications of rare earth doped materials. This special issue contains six articles and they are divided into two issues. The first issue (Vol: 9, No. 2, 2019) contains three articles listed below. Biomedical imaging and therapeutic applications of various lanthanide doped apatites are discussed by authors, Dr. Girija [1], and Dr. Meenal [2]. Dr. Kistaiah [3] reports the spectroscopic studies and energy transfer properties of samarium doped LLSZFB glasses.