A novel approach in light-to-heat conversion: Cr3+-based photothermal agent

In response to the demands placed on functional materials for light-to-heat conversion applications, a new type of photothermal agent is proposed in this work. The proposed approach is based on inorganic materials heavily doped with Cr3+ ions. As shown, the increase in the probability of non-radiative processes and the increasing absorption cross-section of Cr3+ ions in GdAl3(BO3)(4):Cr3+ observed with an increasing dopant ion concentration enabled significant optical heating of the sample. The proposed strategy exploiting Cr3+ ions, due to the much higher absorption cross-section of transition metal ions with respect to the lanthanide ions, may become an important alternative for currently used photo -thermal agents. (C) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Automated summary

This work proposes a new type of photothermal agent based on inorganic materials heavily doped with Cr3+ ions, which shows significant improvement in optical heating performance and may become an important alternative to currently used photothermal agents.