Novel rare earth-polyvinyl pyridine complex functionalized hybrid silica microspheres: molecular assembly and...

The functional silica microspheres are derived from the three different silane crosslinking reagents, and then the polyvinyl pyridine-based rare earth hybrids are synthesized through free radical copolymerization of rare earth-vinyl pyridine complex monomer with these functionalized silica microspheres (RE = Eu, Tb). The obtained hybrids are characterized by Fourier transform infrared, X-ray diffraction, Scanning electronic microscope and photoluminescence spectra. The intramolecular energy transfer process between rare earth ions and polymer polyvinyl pyrrolidone matrices took place within these polymer-based hybrids and especially the quantum efficiency of europium hybrids are determined, suggesting that the hybrid material systems derived from different functional silica microspheres present different luminescence efficiencies.