Enhancement of Luminescence from Lanthanide Metal–Organic Frameworks by Ytterbium and Calcium Doping: Application to Photonic Barcodes and Fingerprint Detection

Emission from metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) made from Eu 3+ and 1,3,5‐benzenetricarboxylic acid (BTC) is enhanced eightfold by doping with Y 3+ and Ca 2+ ions. The Ca 2+ ions are shown to substitute into the MOFs, and the MOFs structure is shown to be retained at high Y 3+ doping levels. The emission enhancement is shown to be associated with variations in the local electric field at the Eu 3+ centers in the MOFs. Calculations indicate that the HOMO and LUMO levels vary considerably with both Y 3+ doping and with low‐level Ca 2+ doping. These then modulates Eu 3+ concentration quenching, ligand‐metal energy transfer processes, and the local electric field at the Eu 3+ centers, qualitatively accounting for the primary observed features. For UV excitation (250, 295, and 393 nm, respectively), the greatest emission enhancement comes from the doped MOFs with 10% Eu 3+ , 89% Y 3+ , and 1% Ca 2+ . In a photonic barcode application, the doped MOFs are shown to facilitate increased information storage density, and in a fingerprinting application, they are displayed to lead to higher photostability and reduced materials demand.