Highly active β-NaYF4:Yb/Er-N-TiO2 nanoparticles for NIR light driven Rhodamine B degradation

Composite nanoparticles consisting upconversion nanoparticles (β-NaYF4:Yb/Er) and nitrogen doped TiO2 nanoparticles were constructed via a chemical assembly method. Efficient energy transfer was enabled since the upconverted energy matched up with the band gap of N-TiO2. This enables the resulting composite nanoparticles to possess excellent Rhodamine B (RhB) degradation activity under near infrared (NIR) light irradiation.