Enhanced Photon Upconversion Using Erbium-Doped Nanoparticles Interacting with Silicon Metasurfaces

Photon upconversion (UC) using trivalent erbium (Er+3) doped crystals is a promising concept to harness near-infrared photons of the solar spectrum which cannot be directly absorbed by silicon solar cells. However, their UC efficiency at low-intensity 1 sun illumination is not relevant on device level so far. Exploiting giant near-field enhancement effects on metasurfaces is an appealing approach to enable efficient UC at low irradiance conditions. Here, we report on more than 1000-fold enhanced photon UC of NaYF 4 :Er ⁺³ nanoparticles interacting with the near-fields supported by a silicon metasurface under 1550 nm excitation.