Facile Synthesis of Highly Water-Soluble Lanthanide-Doped t-LaVO4 NPs for Antifake Ink and Latent Fingermark Detection

Abstract

In the information age, it is important to protect the security and integrity of the information. As a result, the fluorescent ink as an antifake technology and the fingermark as an information carrier have aroused great interest. In this work, highly water-soluble lanthanide (Ln3+)-doped tetragonal phase (t-) LaVO4 nanoparticles (NPs) are successfully obtained via a simple, fast, and green microwave-assisted hydrothermal method. The average size of t-LaVO4 NPs is about 43 nm. The aqueous solutions of Ln3+-doped t-LaVO4 exhibit excellent fluorescence properties under ultraviolet light (UV) excitation (t-LaVO4:10%Eu is bright red and t-LaVO4:0.5%Dy is close to white). Some superb antifake fluorescent patterns are printed using Ln3+-doped t-LaVO4 aqueous solution as ink, which indicates the as-prepared Ln3+-doped t-LaVO4 NPs as fluorescent ink can meet the various antifake requirements. Notably, the designed convenient antifake fluorescent codes with improved security could be directly scanned and decoded by a smart phone. What's more, the as-prepared NPs can be used for the development of latent fingermark on various substrates and the second-level detail information can be clearly obtained from the magnification of a fingermark. These results indicate that the as-prepared Ln3+-doped t-LaVO4 fluorescent NPs have great potential in security application.