Light-Activated LiYF4 Microrotors for Temperature Sensing

In March of 2018, the Jaque Group of the Autonomous University of Madrid reported for the first time the development of lightactivated, remote-controlled microrotors for potential applications in temperature sensing, i.e., microparticles exhibiting rotational motion upon irradiation with near-infrared light, from which the temperature of a liquid medium can be inferred. This novelty opens the door to a new generation of temperature sensors with unprecedented thermal accuracy and is of great interest to biomedical applications such as photothermal cancer therapy. The herein proposed research project seeks to expand the scope of materials with this capacity by exploring the effect of microparticle shape and chemical composition on its efficacy as a temperature sensor. This will be accomplished by applying our newly developed synthesis approach towards bipyramidal-shaped LiYF4 microparticles with ranging lanthanide ion concentrations, followed by assessing their temperature-sensing efficacy with the help of highly-specialised instrumental infrastructure provided by the Jaque Group.

Faculty Supervisor:

Eva Hemmer

Student:

Partner:

University of Madrid

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Nanotechnology

University:

University of Ottawa

Program: