Photonic Bandgap and Excitation Wavelength Modulated Multicolor Upconverted Circularly Polarized Luminescence in Liquid Crystal Microcapsule

Upconverted circularly polarized luminescence (UC-CPL) which is coined by integrating two concepts of photon upconversion and circularly polarized luminescence, has aroused enormous attention from scientists owing to the great performance and potential applications in various fields. To date, although various types of UC-CPL systems are reported, constructing a UC-CPL system with multicolor emission remains a big challenge. In this work, by incorporating lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) into chiral nematic liquid crystal (N*LC), multicolor UC-CPL emission can be realized upon two kinds of modulations: the regulation of photonic bandgap (PBG) and adjustment of excitation wavelength of the doped UCNPs. More importantly, this kind of multicolor UC-CPL system can be used as internal materials for constructing polymer-shell microcapsules. The PBG effect can still be well preserved in the microcapsules, providing a kind of easy processable luminescent material with multicolor UC-CPL properties, which can be used as an advanced anti-counterfeiting material.