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Near-infrared luminescent phosphors enabled by topotactic reduction of bismuth-activated red-emitting crystals

Bismuth-doped luminescent materials have gained significant attention in the past years owing to their huge potential for the applications in telecommunications, biomedicine, and displays. However, the controlled synthesis of these materials, in particular for those luminescing in the near-infrared (NIR), remains a challenging subject of continuous research effort. Herein, we show that the low-temperature topotactic reduction by using Al metal powders as oxygen getters can be adopted as a powerful technique for the conversion of bismuth-doped red-emitting systems into NIR-emitting cousins as a result of the creation of unique crystalline networks. Thorough experimental characterization indicates that the framework oxygen of hosts can be topotactically extracted, thus producing unique metal-oxygen-metal networks in the reduced phases while preserving the crystalline structure of the precursor. We anticipate that this low-temperature topotactic reduction strategy can be applied to the development of more novel Bi-doped luminescent materials in various forms that can find a broad range of functional applications.